


War of the Broses

by eriquin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, April Fools' Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Prank Wars, Prom, Sexual Harassment, Unprofessional Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-05-30 13:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6425044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eriquin/pseuds/eriquin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High school rivals Dean and Castiel are locked in a prank war. How deep is their commitment to the cause? How low will they go? Which one will bend first? Who will come out on top? And other innuendo.</p><p>AKA: Jock!Dean and punk!Cas (let’s be real they’re both actually big nerds) play gay chicken. Except neither of them really wants to win. Or lose, for that matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is where author's notes go, so: 
> 
> I started writing this a little over a month ago. But partway through March I realized that 1) this fic was actually getting written and 2) if I pushed, I might have something worth publishing on April 1st. Since it has pranks as a central theme, that sounded perfect. So here we are.
> 
> I'll try to get all the chapters posted today. If not ... delaying until 4/1/17 would be mean, right?
> 
> Holy crap footnotes work. [Here's how.](http://teekettle.tumblr.com/post/126920988304/live-example-my-ao3-skins-while-ao3-has-a)
> 
> Edited 9/26/16: And now there's a [photoset tribute](http://haelblazer.tumblr.com/post/150947476626/a-completely-entirely-100-unauthorized) by [haelblazer](http://haelblazer.tumblr.com/)! Whaaaaat? (Warning: Photoset contains spoilers.)

“God damn it, Novak,” Dean shouted, pulling a stained-blue towel off of his basketball uniform. Sure enough, it left blue splotches on his pristine white shorts. “Watch where you’re leaving your counter-culture bullshit.” He balled the towel up and hurled it up the locker room. 

It hit Castiel in the shoulder, jostling him as he attempted to style his wet hair with gel. “What’re you whining about now, Winchester?” he asked. 

Dean stormed over to him, waving the stained shorts. He gestured between the blue spikes and the towel. “Your hair. Your towel. Your fault.” 

“Awww,” Cas mock-pouted at him. “No time for mommy to bleach them again?” 

“Fuck you, I have a game today. They have to be clean.”

“What’s the point? You’re just going to soak them with sweat anyway.” Castiel laughed at Dean’s infuriated frown. “If you ask nicely, I could tell you how to get the stains out … but you have to say please.” Cas gave him a little smirk.

Dean caught Castiel’s gaze and held it. “What is this now?” he asked. “Are we fighting or flirting?”

Cas raised an eyebrow. “Can’t it be both?”

Dean frowned briefly. “Nah,” he said. “Buy me dinner first, then we’ll compare kink lists.” He waved the shorts at Castiel, winked, and turned away.

Castiel gaped at Dean’s back as he walked down to his locker. He glanced down briefly and shut his mouth, turning back to the mirror with a grin.

* * *

A few days after that incident, Cas retaliated.

Dean barely made it the cafeteria during his lunch period that day. His friends had saved him a seat at their usual table, but in front of the empty chair was a brightly wrapped Christmas present. It had a tag with his name on it. 

“Aww, who got me a present?” he asked. No one at the table claimed responsibility; none of them even knew who’d left it there. It was a flat package, about the right size for a t-shirt. He held it up and shook it. It sounded like clothes, all right.

“You gonna open it?” Charlie asked around a mouthful of chips.

“You think I should? Christmas isn’t until next week.”

“I’ll bet it’s Lydia,” Victor said. “She’s been eyeing you for weeks.” 

“Yeah, like she’s going to eat me. No thanks.” Dean shrugged and slid his fingers along the edge of the wrapping paper to break the tape. He pulled the bow off the top and put it on Charlie’s head, then pulled off the paper to reveal a plain white box. He took off the top and pushed back the tissue paper to reveal the contents.

“Are those … panties?” Charlie asked. 

Dean pulled a silky green thong out of the box and stared at it, stunned. There was a matching bustier underneath. It all looked so soft. He felt his face heating up, flushed down to the neck. He could only hope that his expression read as rage. 

“I thought they’d match your eyes,” said a dry voice behind him. “I wasn’t sure, but they seemed like your style. ” 

Dean jumped up and spun around. “What. The. Fuck.” He stood right in Castiel’s personal space. He could smell coffee on the other man’s breath. 

Castiel didn’t flinch. “Is it too early for gifts, do you think? I hope I got your size right,” he deadpanned. There was a round of laughter and Dean felt suffocatingly hot. Cas grinned at him. “I just described your fat ass to the clerk and she knew exactly what you needed.”

Victor was at Dean’s side, pulling him back. He shrugged his friend off. “You’re going to regret this, asshole,” he said, storming out of the cafeteria.

Once he was out in the hallway, with the space to cool down, he realized he was still holding the panties. He held them up to take a good look at them and swore again. They did look like his size. 

* * *

Winter break passed uneventfully. Castiel came back to school with purple tips and fading anxiety about Dean’s retaliation. They only had two classes together and roundly ignored each other most of the time.

“How serious are you about this thing with Winchester?” Meg asked him one afternoon during rehearsal. She was slacking off on running tech for the next play, and he was taking a break while waiting for his next scene. 

“Which thing?”

“I heard you guys were dating,” she said. Castiel gave her a scandalized look. “Or fake dating. Or fucking. Or just fucking with each other. There are a lot of rumors.” 

“All this over a pair of panties?” 

Meg rolled her eyes at him. “And the eye-fucking you guys do whenever you have to interact.” She smirked. “Besides, I know how much that matched set cost you.”

Castiel shrugged. “Worth it for his near-aneurysm, though.”

“So are you messing with him, or trying to seduce him?”

He sighed. “Just messing. He’s not my type.” Meg did not look convinced. “We’re more like rivals.”

As rehearsal wrapped up, he offered to give her a ride home. His car was on the far end of the senior parking lot. Meg saw it first and started laughing uncontrollably. 

Castiel’s Continental was filled with brightly colored crap.[1] The backseat was packed with streamers, paper flowers, tinsel, and mylar balloons. There was an enormous, doe-eyed teddy bear strapped into the passenger seat. 

“It’s like Party City threw up in your car.” Meg gasped between laughing fits. 

Cas let out a long groan. “Fucking … Winchester.” 

“You should.” Meg said as Cas yanked open the driver’s side door. This triggered a cascade of streamers, which dropped from the ceiling of the car over the front seats. 

“God damn …” he said, focused on the car. He fussed as he pulled the streamers down and wrestled the bear into the back seat, on top of the crap there. “Creative … ass … butt.”

“Assbutt?” Meg asked.

“Yes, he is the butt of an ass. A double ass. An ass, squared.” The bear crammed into the back, but his and Meg’s bags wouldn’t. “What were you saying I should do now?”

“Fuck Winchester. Or try to. This is like some crazy mating dance.”

“What? No.” Cas scoffed and went around to the trunk. “I’m not interested.”

“You used to watch all his matches when he was in JV wrestling.” Meg gave him a playful shove. “Didn’t you used to wax poetical about their tight little uniforms?”

“That wasn’t about him!” Cas shouted, fumbling with his key. “I don’t lust after straight boys, Meg. You know that.”

Meg let out a choked laugh. “Straight. Right.” Cas squinted at her. “No, you’re right. Dean Winchester is one-hundred-percent straight. He and Aaron were just platonically banging last year, like bros do.”

Castiel’s keys dropped out of his hand somehow. He flailed trying to catch them.

“You missed that?” Meg snorted. “God, you’re the worst rival ever. What kind of teen movie are we in, anyway?”

Cas glared at her as he picked up his keys. “I can still make you walk home, you know.” He finally unlocked the trunk. It swung open with some force, dislodging a plank of wood that had been holding together dozens of rubber duck toys. They sounded in unison as they reinflated, echoing off the back of the school with a mighty “Aaaaaaaaaah!”[2]

Meg collapsed in laughter again. 

“This is fucking war,” Cas said, throwing their bags into the trunk on top of the whining ducks. “Come on, help me plan something.”

They came up with some decent ideas on the way home. Cas dropped Meg off and offered her the bear, but she ‘politely declined’ with a plethora of swear words. He went home and spent half an hour getting stuff out of his car. 

He reassembled the duck bomb to hide in Gabriel’s room. His brother would find it when he came home from college. The streamers and tinsel went into the trash, the bear went to Anna, and the balloons were released into the garage, floating up to the loft for later potential mayhem. 

Once the major stuff was gone, he went through the little spaces of the car for surprises. He found nothing until the glove compartment. There was an envelope in among the stash of napkins that he didn’t remember. Inside the envelope was one picture. 

He held it up to the light to see clearly. The shot was of someone’s freckled torso, shirt lifted up to show a pair of jeans slung low on his hips. And peeking out from under those jeans, just on one side, was a frilly green waistband. 

“Oh no,” Cas said. He stared at the photo for a full minute. Maybe Meg wasn’t joking about Dean and Aaron dating. He’d just assumed she was, but it’s not like he would have noticed either way. Was this Dean really flirting? Or was it a trick as well? 

He tucked the photo back into its envelope and went up to hide it somewhere safe in his room. 

* * *

It took about a week for Cas to make the next move. He’d become more aware of Dean’s schedule and quirks, and skipped one class to set everything up. They had the next class together, and he made sure to arrive early rather than stick around near the scene of the crime. But he told Meg so she could surreptitiously film it.

He heard it happen. Rather, he heard everyone go silent after it happened, and then the loud shout of “Son of a bitch!” from Dean, and the laughter. Their shared classroom was right next to Dean’s locker.[3] He stormed in, covered in sparkling specks.

“A glitter bomb?” he shouted, storming up to Castiel’s desk. “Really?” He wiped at his face and hair, where most of the stuff had landed. He tried to shake the stuff off, but failed.

Cas grinned. “More like a glitter-glue bomb, but yes. Gabriel left a number behind when he went to college.” 

Dean tried to wipe his hands off on his jeans, but it just spread the stuff around. “Gah, it’s like craft herpes!” The bell rang and Dean sighed and took the seat next to Castiel. 

The teacher glanced at Dean and sized up his sticky situation. “Following your brother’s example, Novak?” He asked. Cas answered with a grin. “Just keep it to students. Gabriel drove more than one decent teacher to take early retirement.”

Partway through the class, the teacher put them in groups to work, and Dean started in on him again. “It’s still not as good as what I did to your car, though.”

Cas hummed in agreement. “I suppose, but you really seemed to have spent yourself all in one go there.” Dean sputtered. Before he could react, Cas continued. “But I have plenty of stamina for this. Lots more coming, if you know what I mean.” He winked. 

That shut Dean up for the rest of the class. 

* * *

The trouble was that Castiel didn’t really have a lot more ideas at that point. Dean didn’t keep much more than books in his locker, and they’d probably both get in real trouble if he did anything to any of his team uniforms. He realized he was pretty lucky to have gotten away with the glitter-glue bomb in the first place.

As the end of January neared, Cas put off planning another prank in favor of working on a paper. It was nearly done, but he was taking his free period to type it up on his laptop. He was engrossed in working on it when Dean sat down next to him. Castiel gave him an annoyed glance.

Dean returned it with a grin and wink. In his hands was a pie plate, with an enormous slice of apple pie in it. The smell of baked apples and cinnamon hit him and Cas’s stomach growled. Dean had clearly sweet-talked his way into the teacher’s lounge to heat it up as well.

“It was my birthday this weekend,” Dean said, setting the pie down. “My mom baked this for me. It’s her specialty.” He took out a fork and took an enormous bite.

“How nice for you,” Cas muttered. He stared at the screen of his laptop, but all of his concentration had leaked out of his ears the moment he smelled that pie. 

“It really is.” Dean took another oversized bite and chewed slowly, savoring it. “She makes the best pie. You can’t find anything like it anywhere.” 

Cas cursed himself for not having just gone to the library. But he’d skipped lunch and begged Meg to go get him something while he finished up this paper. She would be back any minute now with a couple slices of pizza for him. In the meantime, Dean sat there eating huge bite after huge bite. The sliced apples leaked gooey filling into flakes of crust in the pie plate. Dean ran his finger through it and slowly licked it off. Cas was staring, not sure if he was salivating at the pie or the display. He swallowed and tried to calm himself.

“But you know, the best part of it is that the crust is as good as the filling.” Dean broke off a piece of golden crust from the edge and held it up for Cas to see. “Even a day later, it’s still flaky and amazing. I would probably just eat the crust on its own.” He popped the piece into his mouth and moaned. 

“I’m trying to work here, Dean,” Cas snapped. 

“Oh, yeah, man,” Dean said, his eyes twinkling. “Don’t let me stop you.” Dean sat back a little and took another bite of pie. Out of the corner of his eye, Cas watched him tip his head back and shut his eyes as he chewed. He kept making quiet little noises as he ate. Cas gritted his teeth tried to stare at his screen.

“Ah,” Dean said, putting his fork down in the empty pie plate. “Now that was amazing.” He leaned back and stretched. “How’s that paper coming along? Worth skipping lunch over?” 

Cas groaned. “Fuck you, Winchester.” 

Dean pushed the pie plate closer to him and spoke in a low voice. “What do you think, Novak? If I let you, would you lick that plate clean?” 

Cas’s head snapped up and he stared Dean down. “So now we’re getting into kink?” he growled. Dean licked his lips. 

“Tuck ‘em back in, boys,” Meg said from behind him. Dean jumped back. She held a small pizza box in her hands. “I got something hot and steamy for Cas here,” she said, winking at Dean. “You’ll just have to wait your turn.” 

Dean excused himself, taking his empty pie plate with him. Cas turned to watch him, and Dean turned around at the door and licked a stripe up the clear glass plate at him before leaving. 

“What was that?” Meg asked, sitting down. She pushed the pizza box at him and Cas grabbed a slice out of it. 

“He was eating at me,” he said, taking a hungry bite. “It was torture.”

Meg laughed. “You’re so screwed.”

“Maybe, but at least I know what to do next.”

* * *

By the end of the week, Dean actually regretted having eaten all of his leftover pie in one sitting. It wasn’t that he’d gotten a stomach ache from it; that hadn’t happened since he was twelve. But now there was no more pie. He’d come home from practice on Thursday to a house that smelled like cinnamon, apples, and nutmeg, but there was no pie in sight. His mom said he was imagining things.

Friday night was game night, and he’d played well for the first quarter and was on the bench now. He tried to watch the game, but kept getting distracted thinking about the damn pie. Then he realized that he could smell it like it was freshly baked from the oven.

He turned around to see Castiel and some of his friends sitting on the bleachers right behind his bench. And sure enough, Castiel had a freshly baked pie in his lap.

“I realize this is derivative of your last ‘prank’,” he said, making finger quotes. “But I had to know if that pie was really as good as you said.” 

Dean stared at the pie in his lap. Hannah was sitting next to him with a stack of paper plates and napkins, and on the other side of him, Meg held some plastic forks. Cas sliced into the pie and, with some difficulty, cut out a large first slice and put it on a plate. It certainly looked like his mom’s pie. Cas passed the slice over and cut another one. 

“Turns out, your mom is the nicest woman.” Cas licked a piece of crust off his fingers and cut another slice to pass out. “Neither of her boys have any interest in learning how to bake, so she was happy to show me how. We spent a lovely afternoon together. I think maybe I picked the wrong Winchester.”

“How did it go again, Clarence?”

“Oh, like this.” Cas put the pie down on the bench beside him and turned to Meg. He stared deep into her eyes. “Mrs. Winchester. Mary.”

Meg put on a singsong voice and clasped their hands together. “Castiel. Darling.”

“I know your oldest son is a huge disappointment. He doesn’t know how to cook for himself or do his own laundry...”

“All right, all right,” Dean said. “That’s enough. You’re lying. There’s no way my mom taught you how to bake her pie.”

“You think so?” Cas handed out a slice to Hannah and another to Meg. He grabbed a fork and took a bite of the last one in the pie plate. “You know what? Maybe I am lying.” He held out a forkful towards Dean and raised his eyebrows. 

Dean glanced over to make sure the coach wasn’t watching. He leaned back from the bench and tried to take the fork. Cas held it just out of his reach. He rolled his eyes but let Cas feed him the bite. He couldn’t resist pie.

Dean savored it for a moment, chewing and swallowing. He sighed, betrayed. “Mom, no…” 

Meg started laughing, and Castiel wore a triumphant grin. “So is it just as good as hers, then?” He took another bite and waved Dean back to the bench. “Tell her I appreciate it. Or maybe I’ll let her know later. She told me to come back when cherries were in season.” Cas winked. 

Dean turned his back to the bleachers. He put his hands behind his head and stuck up his middle fingers at Castiel. He tried to focus again on the game and not think about Cas in his mom’s kitchen, rolling out pie dough.

* * *

Back at home, Dean spent the evening whining at Sam about it. The eighth grader had very little sympathy for him. 

“So are you mad that he did the same thing to you that you did to him, or what?” he asked without looking up from his homework.

“He invaded our house!” Dean said, flopping onto Sam’s bed and waving around his late-night snack. “He seduced classified information out of our mother!”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, he sounds super dangerous. Does Dad know?” 

“I’m just saying, that’s pretty desperate.” He took another bite of his sandwich, getting crumbs on the sheets.

“Dude,” Sam groaned. “Don’t eat on my bed.” Dean grinned and chewed noisily. “This is the guy you’re playing gay-chicken with, right?”

Dean choked on his food. He sat up and thumped his chest, coughing. “How do you even know what that means?”

Sam shrugged. “I’m thirteen, Dean, not six.” He turned back to his homework, but stopped again after a moment. “What I don’t get is, how can you be playing gay-chicken if you’re bi? Isn’t it bi-chicken? Or does it not work because you’re not afraid of dating a guy?” 

Dean groaned. “That’s not what this is. We’re having a prank war.” 

Sam fixed a serious look on him and held it until Dean blinked. “What do you get if you win?” Sam asked. “Wait, no, don’t tell me. I don’t need to know what kind of weird stuff you and your boyfriend do.” 

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Dean shouted. Sam snickered. Dean sighed “He doesn’t even like guys.” 

“It sounds like he likes you,” Sam said, turning back to his homework. 

Dean heard the sound of the front door opening and closing. Mary called up the stairs, announcing that they were back from their date. 

“Go bug mom about it,” Sam said. “I’ve got to finish my homework.” 

“It’s Friday, you nerd.” But Dean left him alone and stomped down the stairs. He added his dirty plate to the pile in the sink and went to find his mom. She was in the laundry room switching a load from the washer to the dryer.

“Mom.” Dean leaned against the folding table. “I’m just going to get to the point. Did you teach Castiel Novak your secret apple pie recipe?”

Mary smiled. “It’s hardly a secret, honey.” She threw a dryer sheet in on top of the wet clothes and turned the machine on.

“But did you though?”

“Which one of your friends is this?” She edged past him and walked to the kitchen.

“He’s not my …” Dean groaned and followed her. “Castiel. Cas. He’s about yay high,” Dean said, indicating his forehead, “blue eyes, deep voice, kinda punk?”

“That nice boy with the purple hair? He was so polite.” Mary opened the dishwasher and started handing clean dishes to Dean.

“Moooom…” Dean sighed heavily but held his hands out for her to stack plates on. 

“He told me how you ate the rest of your birthday pie in front of him without sharing. How did you pass kindergarten again?” 

Dean put the plates away and groaned in embarrassment. “So you made him a pie?”

“He did all the work. I just supervised.” She handed him the basket of clean silverware. Dean dried each one off before putting them away. 

“You told me yesterday I was imagining it!” 

“Of course I did.” Mary grinned as she put glasses away. “Cas and I had a very nice afternoon and I wasn’t going to spoil his plans.”

“Ugh, when did you get so mercenary?”

“Where do you think you got it from?” Mary laughed. “This is just like when you pulled Cassie Robinson’s braids in third grade. The names are even alike.”

“I didn’t … wait. She kicked my ass for that.”

“Damn straight she did. You know how long she had to sit still for those braids? You were such a little shit.”

“I was nine!”

“Most nine-year-olds are little shits, though.” Mary sighed wistfully. “I liked her. And I like Cas.” She smacked Dean with the kitchen towel. “Don’t pull his braids too hard.”

* * *

Becky’s lead-in at the drama club meeting was suspicious. “So, all our voices are in great shape, right?” Other club members didn’t seem as wary as Castiel, though, and assured her that they were. “That’s great, because I need you all to come up with a list of songs you’d be willing to sing for Valentine’s Day.”

The conversations faded away. “Excuse me?” Meg said. 

Most people would have heard the threat in her voice, but not Rebecca Rosen. She plowed on. “We’re going to be selling singing Valentine’s! You’ll each get a list of requests and targets and …”

“And why would we do this?” Balthazar asked. 

“Well, you get to pick your favorite songs,” Becky said eagerly. “As long as they don’t have any profanity in them, of course.”

“Then what’s the fucking point,” Meg muttered.

“And the club needs funding. Also, Principal Tran agreed to let us out of classes a little early next Friday to accommodate …” 

“Sold,” Bal said. “Can we do duets?” 

“Uh, only if you’re both serenading the same person.” Becky started handing out detailed sign-up sheets, asking for a list of songs, Friday schedule, and preferred gender of target. 

Meg snickered. “Already building up for the orgy, Roche?” 

Balthazar winked at her. He leaned over to Castiel. “Put ‘Agony’ with me on your list, will you? I want an excuse to rip my shirt open at school.” 

Castiel snickered. “That will end well.” He thought about it for a second, chewing on the cap of his pen. “I’ll do it if you promise we can corner Winchester on the stairwell and sing it to him.” 

“Of course, Cassie,” Bal said readily. He and Meg exchanged an inscrutable look while Cas filled out his list. He didn’t know a lot of appropriate songs for this challenge, but he thought of three or four. Then he added one more as a joke. 

* * *

As it turned out, the drama club wasn’t the only one with the idea of serenading people on Valentine’s Day. The girl’s field hockey team was coordinating another set with a rock ballad theme. Castiel was surprised there wasn’t more overlap between the two groups. As far as he could tell, it was only Meg, and she wasn’t singing for either one. 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is that Becky-Charlie rivalry thing again,” she told him over lunch midweek. “One of them had the idea and the other stole it, as usual. Hell if I know who started it. They really need to just fuck it out”

“Well, at least this means I won’t be flooded with requests,” Castiel said, looking over the flyer. “Who’s going to want ‘You Should Be Loved’ when they can have an 80s ballad from Poison?” 

Meg snorted. “It doesn’t help that you sound like you’ve had a pack-a-day habit since you were seven.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“I’m not singing for either of them. I’m strictly management.” She tapped her fingers on the table and frowned at her lunch, which did not look any more appetizing cold than it had hot. “Also, I hear they’ve got instrumental accompaniment.” 

“Good for them. Less work for me.” He grinned. “This is really the best news I’ve gotten all week, Meg.”

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Larceny Count: Dean 1, Cas 0.  [ return to text ]
> 
> 2 [Adam Savage's Ultimate Duck Army](https://youtu.be/IniwqWIMMlw?t=1276) [ return to text ]
> 
> 3 Larceny Count: Dean 1, Cas 1.  [ return to text ]


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Footnotes added. Italics added. Why did I decide to do this much formatting? Why?

Friday morning arrived and Becky handed out their assignments for the morning. Each person received a stack of envelopes with times, locations, and songs printed on them. The instructions were to open the envelope upon arrival to find out the target. 

The first one was the duet from Into the Woods with Balthazar. They caught Dean on the stairwell between the second and third floor right after homeroom. It was a good choice because the acoustics bounced the song up and down the atrium. Dean rolled his eyes when Bal ripped his shirt open at the first _Aaaaagony_. [4]. He briefly locked eyes with Cas right after. With a grin, Cas popped the top two buttons of his shirt. Dean’s face flushed red for the rest of the song and he averted his eyes from both singers. The gathered crowd gave them a round of applause at the end. 

Castiel caught up to Bal as he was fastening up his shirt. “Did you get a tear-away outfit just for this?” he asked. He caught Dean giving him a surprised look right before he hurried away to his class. 

“I plan to get a lot of use out of it,” Bal said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ve got a routine for every song.”

Castiel started flipping through his envelopes. There was one for every break until lunch. “Is that the only Agony we have today?”

“Oh, I doubt it. Unless you mean the song, in which case yes.” Castiel rolled his eyes. “Dear Rebecca said your dance card was full today, so I roped our lovely demoness into singing Rapunzel’s prince’s part.” 

Castiel laughed. “You got Meg to sing? How?” Balthazar shrugged and ducked into the door of his classroom with a wave. Cas started to run off to his own, but stopped as the words caught up with him. “Wait, what did Becky say?” he called after him, but the door was already shut. 

* * *

The envelope acted as his free pass for being late to class, and another one got him out of it early. His first solo act was in the hallway of the first floor, outside of room 140, right by the side doors that led to the parking lot. There was no one there yet. He opened the card to read the name and sighed. The door behind him opened and, without turning around, he said “Hello, Dean.”

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Dean said. Cas heard him shuffling and then the twang of an acoustic guitar being strummed. He turned around, and Dean started a gentle rendition of ‘Wild Horses’.[5] Castiel held his breath, enjoying the brief moment where he was the only audience member. Dean gave him a little smile at the end, timed just as the bell rang and the crowds started up. 

“Okay, my turn,” Cas said, waving the card at him. Dean did a double take and took it from him while he cleared his throat. The song requested was ‘On the Street Where You Live’[6], and he held Dean’s gaze while he sang it. The other students gave them a wide berth, either walking around them or standing off by the lockers to watch. 

At the end, Dean shuffled awkwardly. “That was … uh, here,” he said, handing Cas his card. He walked away quickly, shouldering his guitar as he went. Castiel shrugged and went off to his own. 

* * *

The second envelope brought him most of the way across the building, up to the third floor, and into a chemistry classroom. He opened the envelope before going into the classroom and stared at the name. “Really?” he said.

Dean opened the door and stood aside to let him in. “Come on, let’s get this over with,” he said, holding up his guitar. “You want to go first this time?”

The class watched them as they stood across from each other. Cas started with ‘You Were Meant for Me’, a short favorite of his from Singin’ in the Rain.[7] The girls at the front of the class sighed in unison when he finished. Dean shook his head and strummed a couple of bars to get himself in key. He sang a quiet verse and chorus from ‘Angeles’.[8] Once he was done, they exchange cards and the teacher reclaimed control of her class, as it was a double period. Castiel shuffled off feeling a little stunned. 

He looked at his next card ahead of time. It was Dean again, this time it was in front of his locker. There was no skipping it, because he had to go to get his books for the next class. At least it was in one of the less busy areas of the school. 

Dean ran up right as Cas was shutting his locker. He swung his guitar out. “Let’s just get this one over with, yeah?” He sounded annoyed.

“You can just skip it,” Cas muttered.

“No, no,” Dean said, “Gotta make sure _someone_ gets their money’s worth out of these.” He started singing ‘Faithfully’ [9], to Cas’s chagrin. 

“Of all the… Fine.” Cas started up with ‘Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful’[10] at the same time. His next class was on the other side of the building, so he started walking that way, backwards. He beckoned Dean to follow him, and the other boy did. The songs did not mesh well, and the novelty of it was wearing off. People ducked out of the way, and by the time they made it to the main hallway Castiel was out of breath.

“Why are you even doing this?” he asked, handing Dean the next card.

“Favor to Charlie,” Dean said, trading it for Cas’s. 

“Did you lose a bet?” 

Dean shrugged. “I’ll never tell.” He walked off down the hall to his own class. 

* * *

Next was lunch for Cas. He was out of singing assignments, and he made it to the cafeteria without another surprise serenade. Becky came over with another stack of envelopes. “First one is right now!” she said brightly. 

“Are you kidding me?” Cas said, ripping open the envelope. It was for Dean, again. “Dean isn’t even in this lunch period.”

“And yet, here I am.” Dean said, walking in. “And I have it on good authority that this is one of your favorites!” He started playing a barely recognizable acoustic intro for ‘Every Rose has Its Thorn’.[11]

Cas rolled his eyes and looked at the envelope. “You get this from Meg?” he asked. Dean was already singing, so he caught up with ‘You Should be Loved’.[12]

At the end of the impromptu duet, Becky clapped happily. “That was so great. This has been a big boon to us, I’ve got to say.” 

Dean exchanged cards with Cas again. “Whatever. I’ve got American History to get to. See you next period,” he said as he left.

Castiel looked at the stack of five cards left to him. He opened the first one: Dean, again, next period. They shared that class, so it was unavoidable.

“You’re supposed to wait!” Becky said as he started opening all the cards. “It’s supposed to be a surprise.” She tried to grab them out of his hands, but he held them out of her reach.

“What surprise?” he said, going through each one. “They’re all Dean. What the fuck, Becky? thought you weren’t going to let anyone harass people with multiple songs.” Cas waved the cards at Becky. “What the hell is this?”

“They’re not from one person!” Becky shouted back. “Dean is very popular, and he got a lot of Valentine’s.” 

“All specifically with my songs, huh? Bullshit.” 

“I just took the requests, Castiel,” she said. Her back went straight and she stared him down, even though he towered over her. “Don’t blame me for your shenanigans.”

Castiel backed off a little bit. He’d forgotten how scary Becky could get when she wanted to. “Whatever,” he said, tucking the cards back into their envelopes. 

“And you’d better not skip out on any of them. They paid to have you sing and you’re going to sing.” Suddenly her mood shifted back to sunny and bright. “It’ll be great! You’ll see.”

Cas threw himself down at into his regular spot at the lunch table. Hannah was there, looking stunned. She’d been quietly watching the whole exchange. He looked up at her, but she just shrugged, content with playing the audience while sipping her bubble tea.

Meg and Balthazar strolled in. Meg’s hair was teased up and she was wearing her button down shirt tied around her bust. She’d clearly lost a few buttons competing with him. They took their places on either side of Castiel, grinning.

“And how are you this lovely morning, Clarence?” Meg started. 

Cas narrowed his eyes at her. “Did you do this?” 

She grinned. “Only a little bit. Maybe. I admit nothing. Do what?” 

“You not having fun with this, Cassie?” Bal asked. “Meg and I just did a nearly pornographic rendition of Sandra Dee in the gymnasium. She was Rizzo, obviously. I got to play all the other parts.” He flipped his imaginary curls. 

Cas grunted and tossed his opened envelopes on the table. Meg and Bal scrambled for them, each getting a couple. They looked them over, chided him for opening them, then started laughing at each one.

“This is priceless,” Balthazar said. He held out one to Meg. “I’m texting Inais so we get the AV Club’s video camera ready for this one.” Meg nodded in agreement.

“You mean you guys didn’t plan any of these?” Cas asked. “Wait, what’s the last one.”

“Did you not read which songs they picked? Oh, we need music to go with these.” Meg moved over to sit next to Bal and confer.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Cas tried to get the envelopes back, but it was too late. The two of them were too far gone.

“We may not have started this one, Cassie, but we will damn well finish it.” 

“Yeah, go big or go home, right?” Meg gave him a predatory grin.

Castiel looked at them warily. “What am I doing now?”

Bal nodded. “You didn’t organize this, right?” Castiel shook his head. “But this is clearly another episode in your competition with Mr. Winchester, yes?” He nodded. “So take the lead. Out-sing him.” They stared at him, eager for his response.

He glanced at Hannah, who just shrugged again. “Fine,” he said. Meg and Balthazar went back into plotting mode.

* * *

The next four songs went very much like the one at lunchtime. Dean and Castiel sang conflicting songs at, and over, each other. The worst was probably Dean playing ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’[13] while he sang ‘The Music of the Night’[14] complete with Balthazar and an orchestral recording backing him up. He’d even gotten a cape and mask from somewhere.

“You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you?” Dean asked after that. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to hide the blush creeping up it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cas said, handing the props back to Bal. His throat started feeling sore before that song and now he knew he sounded rough. He hadn’t been practicing at all for the past few weeks and regretted it now. 

Dean shook his head. “How many more do you have?” 

Cas gave him a measured look. Dean stared back. “You’re going to have to wait and see,” he said. Dean grumbled and started to walk away. “Hey,” Cas called out. His voice cracked a bit. He caught up to Dean and handed the card over. 

Dean gave him a tired smile. “You keeping all of yours? I’m gonna make a nice collage of regret for today, as a warning to others.” 

Cas shrugged and walked away. He realized later that Dean had been quieter than normal after the song ended. He chalked it up to either exhaustion or embarrassment. 

* * *

Secretly, Castiel was thankful that Bal hadn’t found an outfit for the last song. But he roped in some of the orchestra, and they were setting up on the front lawn at the end of the school day. He didn’t know how Bal had put it together so fast. 

“How do you want to start this?” Bal asked when he came over to the musicians. 

Cas dropped his backpack into a pile of them and rolled his shoulders. It was unseasonably warm for February, which was probably the only reason the orchestra even considered this. “Wait until he gets out here,” he said quietly, “I’m sure he has a ballad for me.”

Bal gave him a concerned look. “You don’t sound great,” he said. 

“Thanks for that.”

“I’ll go and get you some tea and honey,” Bal said, patting his arm and running off. 

Castiel paced and rubbed the back of his neck. He did some vocal exercises. The orchestra players exchanged knowing smiles with each other. “Don’t,” he warned them. 

A crowd of people came out the front doors of the school and he saw Dean with his group of friends. He swore a little that Balthazar was nowhere to be found, but Meg was there with the AV Club’s video equipment. She trained it on him and motioned for him to start. One of the violas handed him a microphone. “Are you serious?” He asked. She nodded and returned to her instrument. He sighed and hummed to clear the last bit of gunk from his throat. Dean saw him and the setup, and a what-the-fuck look crossed his face. 

Cas raised his arm dramatically at Dean. “ _A weakling, weighing 98 pounds_ ,” he recited, sweeping his hand aside. “ _Will get sand in his face, when kicked to the ground_.” [15]

Dean’s face went through a series of disbelieving expressions as Cas strutted over to him. He continued the intro and walked around Dean, wishing for the first time that Bal had at least gotten him a pair of sturdy heels. He ran his fingertips over Dean’s shoulders at the line ‘ _glisten .. and gleam_ ’ and Dean, stunned, turned with him. He put his hand up to Dean’s chest, fingers spread and sang about massage and steam. He stared into Dean’s wide green eyes and gave a gentle push through the next line. Dean obligingly let himself be walked backwards towards the orchestra. Someone had set up a chair for him, and Cas pushed him into it as he sang ‘ _oh honey_ ’ and the orchestra came in full force with ‘ _but the wrong man._ ’

Castiel was fairly sure that the rest of the song was going to end up with him suspended, because he was basically giving Dean a choreographed lap dance with live musicians. Dean, in turn, held a white-knuckled grip on the base of his folding chair. Cas’s voice started to crack on the last couple of lines, and thank god the orchestra swelled to compensate because it completely gave out when he tried to belt out the very last ‘ _I can make you a maaaaan._ ’ He dropped the microphone to hide his vocal failure and ended up straddling Dean’s lap. 

Dean stared him down and whispered “You bastard.” He was bright pink, probably from trying to hide the fact that he was breathing hard. 

Cas winked and patted him on the cheek. “Your turn,” he croaked, getting up off his lap. 

Dean snatched the microphone from him as he tried to move away. “Yeah, it is my turn,” he said into it, getting up and grabbing Cas by the arm. He steered him back to the chair and sat him down in it. “Give those thunder thighs a break, man.” 

The orchestra was clearing out, but five of Dean’s friends were hauling out more instruments and power cords to run them. They set up a speakers, amplifiers, and an electronic drumkit. They had two guitars and a bass as well. “You have a band?” Cas asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.

Dean was helping them set up. “I’m in a band, yes.” He shrugged. “Did you think I just played guitar for shits and giggles?” 

Cas rubbed his neck. “Kinda, yeah.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Well, it’s Gilda’s band,” he said, pointing out the brunette holding two guitars. She winked at Castiel. “She’s usually guitar and vocals, Charlie’s bass, and Ash on drums.” He grabbed one of the guitars from Gilda and walked over to Cas. “They’re making a special exception and letting me sing for you,” he said, bopping Cas on the nose to punctuate it. “But I’m not giving you a lapdance.”

Cas felt his face flush and glanced away. He realized that Meg was still filming this, and Balthazar had returned with tea. That he was drinking, that asshole. Most of the school gathered on the lawn. Anyone who’d missed Cas’s embarrassment earlier had shown up and was finding somewhere to watch. They were hanging back far enough to make it clear that he was in the hot seat. 

The band gave each other little head nods and Dean strummed a little on his guitar. He’d switched to a headset microphone while Cas wasn’t looking. It sounded like he was warming up by noodling around, but it also sounded familiar. By the time the rest of the band kicked in, Cas realized what the song was and mentally kicked himself for not enjoying the intro more. 

“Heart?[16] Really?” Cas asked, but Dean just grinned at him and started singing. The grin was infectious and Cas hid his face in his hands to hide it. Dean’s voice was smooth and low but Cas heard the stress from singing all day seep into it, just like his. 

Dean leaned in over him as he got to the chorus. “ _But I tell myself that I was doin’ all right, there’s nothing left to do at night_ ,” Cas looked up just as Dean threw his head back, belting it out. “ _But go crazy on you_ ,” he sang, fingers plucking the guitar that hung low on his hips. “ _Crazy on you, Let me go crazy, crazy on you, oooh…_ ” He tried to hold the note, but his voice gave out early and he looked startled at himself. 

Dean recovered his voice by the start of the next verse. It was low but rougher than before. He held himself back at the chorus, or tried to. His voice rasped out the wail and Charlie and Gilda both came in as backup vocals to round it out. Dean looked panicked. Cas could see him mouth ‘oh fuck’, but he kept playing. He fell back into the calmer verses with little issue, and he took over the main guitar line with emphasis. Cas’s eyes were drawn to Dean practically humping his guitar through them. He stared, mind fuzzing out. Dean noticed and grinned at him. Even if Cas thought the line about ‘ _sweet, flowing love_ ’ were overtly sexual before, he was never going to unlink it from this visual. 

Dean’s voice did give out on the last iteration of the chorus, but Gilda took over for him as it did. He finished up the song and looked embarrassed. The crowd cheered, though, and Charlie stepped forward to take more requests. 

“You’re singing more songs?” Cas asked as Charlie shooed him out of the chair.

Dean followed him and fidgeted with his guitar. “Just playing,” he said, rubbing his throat. 

“Well, good,” Cas said, grinning, “because you sounded terrible.” 

Dean rolled his eyes and zipped up his jacket. “Don’t pretend you’re not saving some of that for your spank bank,” he said. 

“Oh, the visual, sure.” Cas nodded over towards Meg. “I’ll even have a recording for that.” 

Dean groaned. “Of course you did,” he said. “Well, it’s not like yours was any better, Mr. Tim Curry wannabe. Now get out of here so I can play songs for other people for once.” 

Cas gave him a little flourishing bow and jogged over to Meg. “You got all of that performance, right?”

“Yes, Clarence,” she said, packing the camera away. “Including your O-face when he was grinding on his guitar. I’ll edit it and send you a copy.” 

“Good,” Cas said, rubbing his hands together. “I’ve got some plans on how to get him back for this.”

“For what?” 

“For buying up every fucking one of my songs and ruining my voice?”

Meg clucked her tongue. “Ah, that,” she said. “He ruined his own voice, too, though.”

“That’s hardly payback, though.” Cas grabbed his backpack and started towards his car. “But don’t worry, I have an idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ... many ... songs ... 
> 
> 4 Pick your poison: [Shirt ripping movie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrggORKra2k), [Broadway](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFgMowOwek0), and [Broadway Reprise](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAPJTik5mSo) [ return to text ]  
> 5 [Rolling Stones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhwwCWkmYoc). Anyone who goes to cons, does Jensen take requests? 'Cause, Damn. [ return to text ]  
> 6 I was thinking [Harry Connick Jr.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ihRFBMPaic) ... No, let's be real. I was thinking of that bit from "Blast from the Past" [ return to text ]  
> 7 [Gene Kelly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqsrVQfNYPc) [ return to text ]  
> 8 [Jensen no...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyjfDUwH3vc) [ return to text ]  
> 9 [Journey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMD8hBsA-RI) [ return to text ]  
> 10 [Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqapDK1ffzM) [ return to text ]  
> 11 The aforementioned [Poison](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2r2nDhTzO4) [ return to text ]  
> 12 [Side Show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUs4zOZzGIs) [ return to text ]  
> 13 [Foreigner](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raNGeq3_DtM\)) [ return to text ]  
> 14 [Phantom of the Opera ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57etGc2mHW8) ... and you may notice that the first time I had 'Angel of Music' here because I am an idiot. And I seized on the angel theme. [ return to text ]  
> 15 [The Rocky Horror Picture Show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEx8__ie6bg) [ return to text ]  
> 16 Crazy On You. Here's the [live version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gpNqB4dnT4) [ return to text ]
> 
> Caveat: I haven't listened to all of these.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time Dean tried to break into Castiel's locker, he discovered that Cas had replaced the standard-issue school combination lock with something that used a key. The combo locks were easy to crack, but this would require equipment. He cursed Cas for thinking of it first.

The next day, Ash brought in his lockpick kit. He kept lookout while Dean studied the lock.

“So what’s the plan, Dean-o?” He asked. “What’s your prank today?”

“Nothing,” Dean said. “I just want to see what’s in there. Make sure I can get in.” 

Ash raised his eyebrows. “That’s an awful lot of work to go through for no payoff.”

“I’ll do something eventually.” He put the torque wrench in place and moved on to the hook pick. “You gotta plan these things.”

“I guess,” Ash said, scratching his head. “Well, you guys and your thing … it’s weird, but it’s a lot more entertaining that y’all just making out in locker room like you did with Aaron.”

Dean sighed. “What’s that supposed to mean? Why does everyone think Cas and I are dating?”

Ash snorted. “Ya serious?” 

“Dude’s too weird. He stares too much.” Dean felt the pins slide into place. “I wouldn’t be into him even if he wasn’t straight.” The lock clicked open. [17]

“I think he flirts too much with you to be straight.”

“No, he’s fucking with me. Because he’s an asshole.” Dean put the picks away and opened the locker. 

He took stock of the things inside: some textbooks on the top shelf; sketchbooks tucked in behind a dufflebag on the floor; rough pencil sketches of posed figures taped up on the door; and a dingy trench coat hanging on a peg. He took a couple of pictures of everything with his phone and looked through pockets of the trench. There were some receipts and a set of keys, but no wallet or phone. They keys didn’t look like his car keys, either. 

Dean filed this information away for later. There was a vague plan forming, but wasn’t ready to pull it off. The Valentine’s incident was two weeks gone, and Charlie was still trying to get him to admit that it’d been brilliant of her to put Heart on his list. He still insisted that destroying his voice for three days made it not brilliant. 

“So that’s it?” Ash asked. 

“Yeah, that’s all.” Dean handed the lockpick kit back to him. “But I might need to borrow this again when I have a real plan.”

“Any time, man,” Ash said. He and split up at the stairwell. 

As Dean passed through the main corridor, he did a double-take at the artwork displayed there. He knew that the school put up student artwork here but he’d never really looked at it before. Now he noticed that some shared poses with the sketches in Castiel’s locker. He checked the label and confirmed it. Dean chewed on his lip and brought out his phone to text Victor.

_Dean: How many things does Novak have on display?  
Dean: In school I mean_

Dean tucked his phone away and ran the rest of the way to the gym. He arrived just as the first bell rang, putting him ahead of schedule. His phone buzzed with a response and he checked it while heading to the locker room. 

_Vic: I told you I didn’t need to know about your kinky shit._

Dean sat on the bench and chuckled. 

_Dean: Artwork, asshole.  
Dean: How much artwork does Novak have on the school walls?_

Dean sat and waited for a response as people filed into the locker room. He watched for Victor to come in. When he did, Dean gave him an eager look. Victor rolled his eyes and took out his phone to read the message.

“Damn it, man, how the fuck should I know?” Victor said, twirling the combo of his gym locker. He pulled out his uniform and equipment and stashed his bag in it. 

“But you can find out, right?” 

“So can you if you walk your ass around the school a little.”

“That’ll look suspicious. Come on, man, help me out.” 

Victor let out a long-suffering sigh as he pulled off his shirt. “Fine,” he groaned. “I’ll find out tomorrow. Now stop giving me that look and get dressed.”

Dean grinned and opened his own locker. The contents of it were not as he’d left them.[18] He swore loudly and pulled the twisted sculpture that looked like his baseball uniform. It was long and covered in plastic and very slippery. “I’m going to kill him,” Dean said, trying to get a grip on it to find an end.

Victor looked over. “What did you do?” 

Dean held up the phallic model and twisted it around a few times. It slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor. Whatever it was greased with was also on his fingers now. Dean sniffed his hand. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Victor poked at the shrink-wrapped uniform with his toes. “Are those condoms?”

“And he covered it in KY,” Dean said. He waved his hands at Victor’s face. “Smell.”

Victor flinched away. “Fuck no, you nasty.” He started laughing and backed away from Dean. The two guys down the row looked up in confusion. Victor explained what it was and they joined in the laughter. 

Dean swore at them and started trying to untangle the mess. It looked like the uniform was well sealed and probably didn’t have an lube on it, but he couldn’t get a grip on it to find an end. He glanced up in his locker and realized that the rest of his equipment was also glistening. He reached up to make sure and confirmed that his cup was also covered in lube. This got another round of howling laughter from the other guys in the locker room--word passed quickly and the entire team was watching him struggle. 

“None of you assholes are going to help me, are you?” He asked. There was a chorus of no’s. A couple of people were filming it with their cameras. He flipped them off and returned to work. 

It took fifteen minutes to unwrap his uniform and get uncomfortably suited up. The coach made him run laps for being late, but mentioned “At least it won’t chafe,” with a laughing grin. Dean just hoped he wasn’t going to get a rude nickname for this. 

After practice, he contacted Ash to get some supplies for his next revenge prank. 

* * *

“Still thinking up pranks?” Hannah asked Castiel as he sat down at homeroom. 

He sighed and rolled his eyes at her. He was not having the best morning: woke up late, cold shower, car wouldn’t start, run to school in a drizzle, etc. He’d just made it in time and was out of breath. After a moment of sitting still and letting his heart rate settle he turned to peer at her. 

Hannah was waiting patiently, no sign that she’d interpreted his huffing as rudeness. She gave him a small smile when he looked over. 

“You mean on Dean, right?” 

She frowned at him. “Are you pranking someone else now?”

“No, just clarifying. I think I’m good,” he said, “but did you have some idea for me?”

“I was wondering if you’ve done anything to his car.”

Cas shook his head. “The Impala is off limits.” 

Hannah gave him a little frown and propped rested her chin on hands as she watched him. “He broke into your car, though.”

He let out a long sigh. “I want to stay on his mom’s good side. Remember the pie? Well, I had a long talk with her while she was teaching me to make it and she made me promise not to harm his car. It was theirs before they got married.” Cas rubbed his forehead. “I’m pretty sure he was conceived in it.”

Hannah’s forehead wrinkled. “That sounds awkward.” 

“Yeah, it was. She didn’t come right out and say it but she got this look on her face like …”

“No, I mean car sex. Wouldn’t that be cramped?”

Cas snapped his mouth shut. He stared at her for a bit. As usual, he was unable to tell if she was being serious. Someday, Hannah was going to reveal that her earnestness was a mask for some deep seated sarcasm. But apparently not today. He rubbed the back of his neck. “It … it is a big car. With a big back seat …” he mused.

Hannah furrowed her brow and looked thoughtful. “I suppose I understand the mechanics, then. But I am digressing. Are you still pranking Dean?” 

“I got his gym locker pretty good last week. I’m okay waiting for him to retaliate.”

“Oh. Then you haven’t seen the paintings?” 

Cas froze. “What paintings?” 

“In the main entryway and the art wing. Where your artwork was.” 

“Was? What?” Cas started frantically packing his bag as he checked the clock. The homeroom bell rang right after, letting him run out quickly. He threaded his way through the people in the halls to the front of the school. There, nestled among other student artwork and in place of his meticulous figure study, was a two-foot by three-foot poster of dogs playing poker. 

Castiel stared. Upon closer inspection, he discovered it was not a poster of the pop painting but a recreation on velvet. Complete with a label attributing it to him. 

Castiel stalked down to the other end of hall and found another replacement for his displayed work. This one was Elvis, again on velvet. “Well, at least he’s going for the classics,” Cas grumbled to himself. His legs ached from running again, and his jeans were still damp from the rain. He leaned up against the wall and ran his hands through his wet hair. The art wing was on the other side of the school from his next class. He decided to check it later, not willing to get himself worked up about it right now. 

Later turned into right before lunch, and there he found another velvet painting in place of one of his. This one was a creepy painting of baby Jesus where the eyes followed you. He watched a couple of people walk past it while staring, then hurry off, spooked.

He finally saw Dean in their fifth period economics class. Cas switched his regular seat to sit behind him. He gave the bottom of Dean’s chair a light kick to get his attention. Dean sat sideways in grinned at him. “Yeah?”

“I am confused,” Castiel started. “So far we’ve both been keeping to a theme. This seems not to fit it.” Dean raised his eyebrows and waited for elaboration. “You stole my artwork and replaced them with kitschy paintings. How is that a flirtation?”

Dean grin grew broader. “That’s because you haven’t seen where I put your paintings.” He turned his back to Cas as the class started. 

Cas spent the next twenty minutes staring at the freckles on the back of Dean’s neck. He tamped down the urge to reach out with his pen and connect them like constellations. Dean was expertly ignoring him, even taking notes. 

Cas fidgeted and ducked down to get something out of his bag. He glanced up and noticed that Dean’s shirt was riding up at the back. He sat back up and carefully toed off his shoe. His foot was still cold from running through the rain this morning. His sock was even still a little damp. Cas took a large amount of silent joy from the moment Dean yelped as he shoved his foot up the back of his shirt. The teacher glared at him, but Dean turned it into a cough and she went back to explaining the federal reserve.

Dean sat up straight and pinned Cas’s foot to the back of the chair. Cas wiggled his toes and Dean squirmed. The people on either side of them hunched over their notes, trying to hide snickers. He kept this up until Dean reached behind his back to grab at his foot, and then Cas quickly pulled it back. He kept randomly poking at Dean’s back and making him squirm for the rest of the class.

When the teacher started writing their homework on the side-board, Cas took the time to lean over and whisper to Dean. “Where are my paintings, you little goat fucker?” 

Dean gave him a wild look and mouthed the words ‘goat fucker’ back at him. Cas raised an eyebrow at him. They silently stared at each other until Charlie reached over the aisle to whap Dean on the shoulder with her notebook. 

“Just kiss him already,” she hissed at him. 

“He called me a goat fucker,” Dean whispered back.

“I don’t want to hear about your weird sexcapades, Aberforth,” she said, gagging.

“Focus, Winchester.” Cas reached over and poked Dean’s shoulder to punctuate each word. “Paintings. Where. Are--”

“Ugh, at my house,” he said, swatting at Cas. 

Cas stopped poking him. “How is that …”

“On the ceiling above my bed, you douche,” Dean said. “There, you’ve ruined the whole build up. Congratulations.” Charlie started laughing. The teacher cleared her throat but there was only a minute left of class, so she gave up on reining them in. 

Cas hastily put his shoe back on and packed his notes away. “Dean,” he said quietly, getting the man’s attention. “If you wanted nudes, you could’ve just asked. It’s not like I don’t have a mirror.”

Dean froze while shoving his textbook into his bag. The bell rang, and Cas stood up. Dean looked him over and the corner of his lips crept up. Cas snorted and edged past him, running his hand lightly over the back of Dean’s neck as he did. 

He left the classroom without looking back, but Dean caught up with him in the hallway. “Hey, Cas, look,” he said, walking next to him. “Maybe we should call off this whole prank war thing? I mean, we’re even now, right?” 

Cas sucked in a breath. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Aww, come on. I didn’t really put your paintings over my bed. I was careful with ‘em. I’ll bring ‘em back tomorrow.”

Cas grinned. “Still no. I’ve got something planned. Stamina, remember?” 

Dean threw his head back in an exaggerate groan. “Fine,” he said. “Just remember that I offered a truce and you turned it down!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, because I went back and added song footnotes, I need to update my footnote links. GJ, author.
> 
> 17 Larceny Count: Dean 2, Cas 1 [ return to text ]
> 
> 18 Larceny Count: Dean 2, Cas 2 [ return to text ]


	4. Chapter 4

Waiting for retaliation was starting to affect Dean’s nerves. He had expected something on April Fool’s Day. He spent the whole day jumping at every little thing, and in the end nothing particularly prank-like caught him. He hadn’t been able to pull together his locker-based prank in time, and was still saving it. At the end of day, he caught Cas’s eye and the man looked just as tense as he felt. He got home to find the contents of his underwear drawer frozen in a block of ice, but Sam took credit for that. He and Cas had let their own personal holiday pass by.

But Cas was still out to get him, maybe even more so. Even after April first, he braced himself every time he opened his locker. Whenever there was an unexpected interruption during class he’d freeze for a second. All of his teammates promised that they wouldn’t help Castiel prank him during a game or practice, but no one would swear off facilitating pranks completely. They enjoyed watching him squirm. 

Charlie called him out one evening while practicing with the band. His mind was wandering too much and he’d missed his entrance three times in a row. Gilda interrupted Charlie’s mocking, and suggested they take a break and get dinner. Dean drove, as usual, with Ash sitting shotgun and the girlfriends in the back seat. 

The car was quiet. Dean glanced in his rearview mirror, but instead of PDA he just saw Gilda sleepily resting her head on Charlie’s shoulder. They were all stressed about college acceptance letters, except for Ash. MIT approved his early action application, so his plans had been set since December. He was drumming his fingers on the dash as Dean drove. 

“Hey, Ash,” Dean said. “Pick a tape.” 

Ash did a double take. “What, really?” 

“Yeah, man. Come on, before I change my mind.”

Ash leaned over and picked up the box of cassette tapes. They’d been handed down from Dean’s dad along with the keys to the car when he turned sixteen. Ash looked over the names on the cases and picked one out. He popped the tape into the deck and grinned. The tape hiss came over the speakers, and then and unfamiliar beat and a woman’s voice singing. [19] “Huh,” Ash said. “That don’t sound like Skynyrd.”

Dean glared at the tape deck for a moment, then shot an angry look at Ash before turning his eyes back to the road. “What did you do?” He pulled the car into an empty parking lot. 

Charlie and Gilda leaned over from the back seat. “I didn’t know you liked Taylor Swift, Dean,” Gilda said with a smile. 

Dean popped the tape out and held it up to the light from the streetlamps. It was definitely the tape that started with ‘Simple Man.’ He could barely make out the worn writing and old stains on the label. Dean’s jaw fell open. “He didn’t,” he said quietly. 

He put the tape back in and fast forwarded. At each stop there was another song by someone he didn’t recognize, though Gilda did. She named Katy Perry, Lorde, and Adele for him. Dean reached the end of the tape and took it out.

“Give me another one,” he said.

“Which one?” 

Dean grabbed the box of tapes from Ash and grabbed one at random. He checked, and it had some of his favorite Led Zeppelin tracks on it. But when he played it … 

“That’s Beyoncé,” Gilda said.

“I know it’s Beyoncé!” He snapped, angrily fast-forwarding to check the rest of the tape. All the Zepp was gone. 

They went through four more tapes, each one of them wrong. Dean stopped and put the box down on the bench beside him. He leaned over and hid his face in his hands, forehead resting against the steering wheel. He kept his eyes pressed tightly shut. He took a deep breath and let it out very slowly, counting to ten in his head. There were three sets of eyes on him and he buried the urge to cry down deep. 

“Uh, Dean?” Charlie reached over and laid a hand on his back. “You ok?”

“He recorded over my tapes,” Dean said quietly. “I can’t fucking believe it.” 

“I know, hon,” Charlie said sympathetically. “Maybe we can fix them?” 

Dean sat back, hands still gripping the wheel. His face was blank. “Where is he?” He flexed his fingers. Charlie caught Gilda’s eye and shook her head. “Novak. Where’s Novak tonight?”

“Uh …” Charlie said. “I don’t …” 

“Ash, can you find him?” 

Ash gave the girls a sideways glance. “Sure, compadre,” he said, pulling out his phone. “Gimme a minute.”

“Dean,” Charlie started, her voice even. “You’re not going to … hit him with your car or something, are you?” 

Dean grunted and put the car back in drive. “No, I wouldn’t do that to Baby,” he said, patting the wheel. He pulled back out onto the road and continued driving. “I’ll just strangle him with my bare hands.” 

They drove along in silence for a couple of minutes. “So, where are we going?” Gilda ventured. 

“I’m going to drop you guys off at the diner and go find him,” Dean said, “once Ash has his info.” He glanced at Ash, who was staring guiltily at his phone. “Ash?”

Ash looked up, startled. “You know, I’m not really all that hungry. Maybe we could just head back?” 

Dean stared at the road ahead. “He’s at the diner, huh?” 

He floored it. 

Charlie yelled at Dean to slow down as Gilda reached over and smacked Ash on the back of the head. They pulled into the diner a few minutes later. Dean parked almost haphazardly at the far end of the parking lot and stalked towards the building. Charlie chased after him while Gilda and Ash stayed a few paces back.

Ash switched his phone to video and held it up. “Who do you think’ll win?” 

Gilda sighed. “You got a pool going already?” 

“Have since January. Plenty of people put money on this whole thing ending in violence. Let’s find out if I’m making a snuff film or a porno.”

“Charlie should’ve brought her bass so we could have a soundtrack.”

Up ahead, Charlie was failing to stop Dean from storming into the diner. Cas was sitting near the entrance. He stood up when he saw Dean’s stony expression.

Missouri, the owner, warned him from behind the counter. “Don’t you start anything in here, boy,” she said to Dean. 

“No ma’am,” Dean said through gritted teeth. He wrapped his arm tightly around Castiel’s shoulders. “Just gonna talk to my friend here outside.” 

Cas waved off the rest of the table as Dean herded him out the door. Charlie’s face fell but she held the door for them. Once outside, Dean let go of his shoulders. He grabbed the collar of his trench coat and dragged Cas to the far side of the building, kicking up gravel as they went.

Once they were around the corner, Cas slipped his arms out of the trench coat and dashed just out of arm’s reach. “I take it you found the tapes,” he said, hands up placatingly. 

Dean threw the trench down. “Damn right I found the tapes,” he said. He lunged at Cas, who danced back just out of reach. 

“So you didn’t like the songs? I picked them out special for you.” Cas circled around and ducked out of Dean’s grasp again. “Or is this because you did like them? Is this your idea of foreplay?” 

Dean feinted right and caught Cas’s arm, spinning them both around and dragging him to the ground. “You think this is funny?” He brought his leg up over Cas’s hips and pinned his legs down. Cas kicked wildly and tried to roll over. Dean twisted Cas’s arm and pinned his wrist to the middle of his back. “You fucked with … you recorded over my dad’s tapes, you asshole.” He grabbed Cas’s hair and pulled to make him arch his back up. Cas let out a shout and tried to swat at him with his free hand. 

“I didn’t though,” Cas said. He grabbed at Dean’s hand in his hair. 

“The hell you didn’t,” Dean said, twisting his arm further back. There was a small crowd gathering behind Ash to watch, and Dean felt his face grow hot. He leaned his weight into Cas’s back and heard the crunch of gravel underneath them.

“Ow, fuck. Dean, stop!” Cas kicked at him again, flailing wildly. His grip on Dean’s hand slipped and he uselessly pushed against the ground. “Copies,” he shouted, panting. “They’re copies!”

Dean froze, easing back a bit. “What?”

“I didn’t record over anything!” Cas twisted to look over his shoulder. “The tapes in your car are all fake.” 

Dean stared down as all the tense anger seeped out of him. “Fuck,” he said quietly, letting go of his wrist and hair. Cas caught himself before his face hit the ground. Dean pushed himself up to his feet and Cas rolled over. He shook some bits of rock out from under his shirt and off of his jeans. Dean crouched down and offered him a hand up. Cas arched an eyebrow at him, but took it and got to his feet. 

“Show’s over, folks,” Dean said, waving everyone off. He saw Ash with his camera and gave him a disappointed look. Ash sighed and put his phone away, and people started to leave. Dean turned back to Cas, who was picking up his coat and shaking it out. “Uh, you ok?” 

“Fine,” Cas said, putting his coat on. He slipped his hands into his pockets and stared Dean down. 

Dean rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at Cas’s feet. “I’m, uh … I’m sorry about that,” he said quietly. “I don’t mean to be that guy, you know. I just …”

Cas smirked. “I’ve seen you wrestle. I figured you’d have me pinned eventually. I just thought it’d be somewhere softer.” He rubbed his scalp and hummed. “The hair pulling is different, though. I might have to think about that one.” 

Dean rolled his eyes. “So glad I’m helping you find new fetishes.”

Cas leaned against the brick wall of the diner. “I switched the tapes, like, three days ago. I thought you’d see them in daylight and it’d be obvious.” 

“Yeah, well…” Dean chewed on his bottom lip. “So, can I have my real tapes back?” 

Castiel’s eyes lit up and his smile turned wicked. “Oh, no. No, I don’t think so. Not after that display.” 

“What? Are you serious?” 

“Definitely,” Cas said, stepping into Dean’s space. “I think you’re going to have to do me … some favors, Winchester.” 

Dean gulped. “What favors?” 

The corners of Cas’s eyes crinkled as he laughed. He pulled a tape from his pocket and handed it to Dean. “First one’s free,” he said, walking away. 

Dean stared down at the familiar tape in his hand. He slumped his shoulders in defeat and walked back to his car.

* * *

“I want you to know,” Meg said, dropping into the chair next to Castiel, “that I don’t blame you for getting your ass kicked.” 

Cas didn’t look up from the list he was writing. “I did not get my ass kicked,” he said.

“That’s not what it looked like to me.”

“You weren’t even there.”

“No, but Ash recorded it all.”

This made Cas look up. “He didn’t post that.”

“Yeah, Winchester told him not to. But he let me see it.”

Cas narrowed his eyes at her. “Why would he let you see it?” Meg waggled her eyebrows lasciviously at him. “With Ash? Really?” He tried to recover from the shock. “I mean, I guess if it makes you happy...”

Meg grinned. “No, not really, dumbass. I’m his damn dealer. We made a trade.” 

“Oh, thank god.” Cas sighed, turning back to his list. “I thought the world was ending.”

Meg cleared her throat. “So about your ass-kicking…”

“I maintain that my ass was not kicked. My ass was pinned.”

“Whatever. I’ll bet you liked it.” She watched Cas smile to himself. “You are okay, though, right?”

Cas sighed. “I don’t think he really wanted to fight me. It’s just that there were people around. You know how it is.” He shrugged and pushed the notebook over towards her. “I need more ideas for this.”

Meg grinned. “New list of kinks?” 

Cas snorted. “Hardly. I’m holding Dean’s tapes for ransom and thinking up a list of things he can do to get them back.”

Meg read over the list. “None of these are nearly sexual enough. I’m disappointed. Have you learned nothing from me?”

“I’m not going to blackmail him into sex, Meg.” 

Meg threw her hands up. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.” Cas chuckled. “Fine, fine. Are you gonna make him carry your books for you and wear his letter jacket?”

Cas squinted at her. “I might. It’s an idea.” He wrote it down. “Anything else?”

“He could fix up that piece of shit you drive so it doesn’t break down every other morning.” Cas grunted in acknowledgement and added it to the list. “Or you could just have him chauffeur you around for the rest of the year.” 

Cas clicked his pen and chewed his lip. “No, but I do have to drive Anna to dance classes. I could make him do that. And type up my notes for physics extra credit. And mow our lawn.” 

“Ugh, boring.” Meg said, getting up. “Though if you make him wear something skimpy when you do it, let me know.”

Cas snorted and closed the notebook. “Like hell I will.”

“I’d share with you!” 

“That’s part of the problem,” Cas said, glancing at the clock. “Going out for lunch?” 

“Yes, because my car actually works. You coming with?”

Cas nodded and followed her out of the cafeteria. “Let me drop by my locker to get my coat.” 

It wasn’t far out of their way to swing by his locker. Cas opened it and was greeted by a cloud of perfume and a curtain of pink.[20] He stepped back, startled.

Meg sneezed at the perfume. She looked in the locker and gagged. “It’s like Barbie threw up in there. What the hell?” 

The sketches inside the door had been given neon pink magnetic frames. His books now sported quilted and bedazzled covers. And in place of his trench coat was a pink one, shiny and plastic. Cas pulled it out of the locker and held it up. It was even his size.[21]

“I thought you had Winchester by the short and curlies. What gives?” Meg asked. She wrinkled her nose up at the coat. 

“He’s probably planned this a while ago,” Cas said, pulling on the coat on. “How do I look?”

“Tim Gunn would have concerns,” she said. 

“Think I should dye my hair to match?” He asked, knowing her weakness for his hair.

Meg grinned and her eyes lit up. “You should make it a neon rainbow, like the majestic unicorn you are.” 

“That sounds complicated.” 

“That wasn’t a no,” she said, pulling him along by the arm. “Come on, Pinkie Pie, let’s get lunch already.” 

“... Pinkie is not a unicorn.” 

“God, you’re such a nerd.”

* * *

Castiel wore the coat to each class for the rest of the day. Dean caught up with him after his last period. 

“So, the coat,” he started. 

“I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on it,” Cas said, grinning. “It’s a lovely gift, but what was the occasion? Or are you finally returning the favor from Christmas?”

Dean’s face flushed and he muttered a curse. “What are the chances that you’re willing to trade me my tapes for your trench coat?”

“Pretty slim when I have such a great replacement.” He flipped up the collar of the pink coat and rubbed his cheek against it. “And it smells so nice…”

“God damn it. I knew I shouldn’t’ve bothered.”

Cas grinned. “How long were you been planning that switch?”

“The weekend after the painting thing.” Dean frowned. “You never got those back.” 

“There is nothing of mine that you have that I will trade for those tapes, Dean.” 

Dean grinned. “I could try to find your sense of self respect.” 

Cas pulled a face. “Nice. I thought you’d go for the ‘virginity’ thing.” He readjusted his coat. “So how would you feel about driving my sister to her dance class for the next month?”

“Uh… neutral?”

“For one of your tapes, I mean.”

“Wait, is this the kind of favor you meant?” Dean stared at him. “Fuck, I thought they were going to be sexual.” Cas detected a hint of relief in Dean’s tone.

Cas rolled his eyes. “Tuesdays and Thursdays. Drop her off by 5, pick her up at 7. Can you manage?” 

“For a month? For one tape?” Dean sucked in a breath through his teeth. “That doesn’t really seem worth it. How about one tape per ride?”

Cas narrowed his eyes. “How about one per week?”

“Deal. When do I start?” They exchanged numbers and details and Cas walked away feeling vaguely put off about the ease of it.

* * *

The next day, Cas handed Dean the rest of his list, along with tape prices for each of item. Dean looked it over and smirked.

“I’m going to have to try to fix your car before I wash it. I’m pretty sure it’s held together with rust, dude.”

“That’s fine with me,” Cas said. He was still wearing the pink coat and he’d colored and styled his hair into a pink-and-purple gradient mohawk. Dean kept trying not to stare at it, but Cas caught his gaze shifting up. “It’s to match my lovely coat.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Dean sighed. “Your weird hair is how this whole mess started, isn’t it?”

“Aww, you remember that?” Cas gave him a genuine smile. “It was like our first date. I’m gonna tell our grandkids about it.” 

Dean rolled his eyes. “Whatever, man. Can you bring your piece of shit to my dad’s shop this weekend so I can take a look? If I can fix it on Saturday, I’ll wash it on Sunday and finally have some decent music again.” 

“I left you plenty of decent music, you just don’t know how to appreciate it.” He and Dean glared at each other for a while. 

Dean cleared his throat. “So, Saturday?” 

“Yeah, see you then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 19 Larceny Count: Dean 2, Cas 3 [ return to text ]
> 
> 20 Larceny Count: Dean 3, Cas 3 [ return to text ]
> 
> 21 Can I put images in footnotes? [ return to text ]  
>   
> Yes. Yes I can.


	5. Chapter 5

On Saturday, Dean did a thorough tune up of Cas’s car. He made Castiel help as he replaced the starter and spark plugs, changed the oil, and rotated the tires. Cas did his best to pay attention and not stare at Dean in his jumpsuit. He got a lecture about taking care of his car, and handed over one of the tapes. 

On Sunday, Dean showed up at Cas’s house after lunch with a pair of buckets, sponges, clean rags, and all the things needed to properly wash and wax a car. Cas moved his car down the long driveway to the back of the house. Dean asked him to run the garden hose back there and he went into the house to get changed out of his jeans.

Cas set up the hose and got out a lawn chair. He picked a spot with some shade and sat back with a novel, waiting for Dean to get started.

“I knew you weren’t going to help with this one,” Dean said, letting the screen door swing shut behind him. 

Cas looked up from his book and gawked. Dean had changed into a very small swimsuit, practically booty shorts. They barely covered his ass. He also wore on a pair of ratty red Converse sneakers and a cropped white tank top emblazoned with ‘I Get Bi’[22] in rainbow letters. 

Dean smirked at him and turned to fill up the buckets with water. The backs of his shorts rode up when he crouched down. Cas stared and put his book down in his lap strategically.

“What, you didn’t have a speedo?” Cas said, propping his head up in his hands. “I’m disappointed.” 

Dean glanced at him over his shoulder. “No, you’re not,” he said with a wink. 

He started with washing the wheels, which meant he spent a long while crouched with his back to Cas. His freckled arms shone gold in the sunlight every time he stretched towards the bucket of soap. Cas tried to pretend he was reading his book. 

He got a brief reprieve from the sight when Dean went around to the other side of the car to wash the other two wheels. Cas pulled out his phone to text Meg. 

_Castiel: I’ve made a huge mistake._  
_Mistress: What else is new?_  
_Castiel: Dean is washing my car in the most amazing outfit. I can’t decide if my boner is appropriate or not._

There was no immediate reply from Meg. Cas frowned and realized she’d changed her name in his phone again while he wasn’t looking. Cas hid his phone behind his book as Dean came back around the car to get the hose. When he was out of sight again, Cas’s phone buzzed. 

_Mistress: I require photographic evidence to confirm the veracity of your claims._

Cas sighed. First, he changed her name back. Then he replied.

 _Castiel: of Dean or the boner?_  
_Castiel: and give the phone back to Meg, Bal._  
_Meg: Either - B_  
_Meg: Both - M_

“You’d better be texting over there,” Dean said, leaning on the roof of the car. Cas looked up sheepishly and brought up his phone from behind his book. Dean grinned and went back to scrubbing the car. 

He watched Dean contort himself into positions as he cleaned. It took a shamefully long time for Cas to realize that most of it was unnecessary. He was distracted by the way Dean arched his back as he scrubbed the roof and bent over to wipe down the bumpers. Cas waited until Dean was spread artfully over the hood of the car, washing the windshield, before he snapped a picture. The click was audible and he swore, trying to hide the phone. 

“You know,” Dean said, looking over, “when the team did this last year we charged extra for pictures.” 

“What? Which team?” 

“Baseball, last spring.” He tossed the sponge into soapy bucket and picked up the hose. “We made enough to pay for our away game bus for the year. I thought that was where you got the idea.” He glanced over at Cas, who was frowning. “Aww, did you think you were my first? That’s cute.” 

“Haha fuck you,” Cas said, slouching down in his lawn chair and hiding behind his book. 

“Cassie!” The back door swung open and Anna dashed out. She stopped short when she saw Dean. She furrowed her brow in confusion.

“What do you want, Anna?” Cas grumbled, sitting up. He put his phone in his book and set it down on the grass next to him.

“Why are you … why is he washing your car, Cassie?”

Dean ducked his head and glanced over at Cas. “For the same reason he’s driving you to dance class.”

“Extortion,” Dean filled in helpfully. 

Anna rolled her eyes. “Right, whatever. I told Ruby and Jess they could get rides with me, ok?” 

“To what?” Cas asked.

“To dance class? Duh?” 

“Fine. Let Dean know where to pick them up and drop them off.” 

“Hey!” Dean shouted. “I am not a taxi service!” 

“Right now, you’re a car wash. Get back to work.” 

Dean grumbled and turned away from them to continue rinsing the soap off the car. Anna stared at him. She scrunched up her nose and frowned. 

“Was that all?” Cas asked, getting up. 

“So, like, he’s hot, right?” Anna crossed her arms and tilted her head, watching Dean carefully. Dean’s back stiffened, but he didn’t turn around. 

“I’m not sure I like where this is heading,” Cas said.

“It’s just …” She threw her arms up in frustration. “I guess I’m a lesbian.” Dean stopped hosing down the car and leaned over, shaking with silent laughter. 

“Oh. Okay. Well, Dad’ll be pleased.” Cas grinned. “And the Novak kids are oh-for-three with heterosexuality, it seems.” Dean’s head snapped up and he stared at the Novaks. Cas ignored it and continued to question Anna. “Is that why you want to give Jess and Ruby a ride to dance class?” 

Anna groaned. “Ugh, no, they both like this boy. It’s always ‘Sam’s so cute’ and ‘Sam’s so smart’ and--”

“Wait, wait,” Dean said holding up his hand. “Please tell me you don’t mean Sam Winchester.” 

“Yeah.” Anna nodded. “You know him?”

Dean’s flashed a brilliant, genuine smile. “He’s my little brother. He never mentioned any girls liking him.”

Anna tisked dismissively. “He’s a boy. He probably didn’t even notice.” She pursed her lips and peered at Dean for a moment. “Can you tell him to ask Jess out? I think I have a chance with Ruby.” 

“And that’s enough,” Cas said, steering Anna back towards the house. “Dean has to finish washing my car now.” He pushed her back inside. As soon as the door was shut, a spray of water hit him in the middle of his back. 

He whirled around to see the hose falling to the ground and Dean looking around wildly. “What? How did that happen?”

Cas glared at him. “You asshole,” he said.

Dean shrugged. “At least I waited until you put down your phone,” he pointed out. He spread out his arms. “And if you’re going to hit me back, I’m already dressed for it.”

“Yeah, I don’t see the point in that.” Cas said, pulling at the back of his now-soaked t-shirt.

“You want to help me rinse off your car?” He picked up the hose and offered it to Cas.

Cas eyed him warily. “Does that mean you’re almost done?” 

“I still have to dry it and wax it, but yeah.”

He eyed the car and shrugged. “You go and do that, then. I’m bored.” Cas pulled his wet shirt off and slung it over his shoulder. “Come and find me when you’re done,” he said, going inside. He didn’t miss the fact that Dean’s eyes went wide at the sight of his bare chest.

He went up to his room, put on a dry shirt, and then realized he’d left his book and phone outside. He had to slink back out to retrieve them. Dean frowned at him but didn’t say anything. He’d finished rinsing and was now methodically drying the car. 

Cas went back inside and set his stuff down. He paced a bit, sighed, and decided to not be an ass for once. He went back outside, grabbed the other towel, and started helping to dry the car. 

Dean stopped and stared. He started to say something, but Cas caught his eyes and glared at him. He shut his mouth and they finished drying the car together in silence. 

“So now we wax it?” Cas asked. 

“No, now I get my dad’s rotary buffer and finish up. You can watch, if you want.” He threw his towel at Cas as he jogged past him, up to the front of the house where his Impala was parked. He came back a minute later with a piece of equipment and a heavy duty extension cord. He sent Cas to plug it into an exterior outlet while he stayed by the car setting up. He explained how buffing worked, and pointed out the scratches and spots that he was going to get rid of. Then he handed Cas a roll of tape and told him to mask the lights and badges, just like if he was painting a room. Dean started buffing the side panels. 

Once he was through masking the details of the car, Dean told him to follow him along and wipe off the hazy residue on the panels he was done buffing. They worked in series like that over the whole car--once it was buffed, Dean switched to polish and that also required Cas to follow after him and wipe the final layer of polish off. And then again with the car wax. Finally, they went through and cleaned off the windows and pulled off the masking tape. 

“There,” Dean said after he’d finished putting everything away. “Good as new.” 

Cas looked over at Dean, standing tall in the sun and very proud of his work. His mouth went dry and he shuffled his feet. “Yeah, thanks,” he mumbled. 

“You have my tape?” Dean asked. “I got a thing I gotta get to tonight.” 

Cas nodded and brought Dean into the house. He had the tape ready after Dean changed back into his regular clothes. 

* * *

Driving Anna was easy, Dean decided. He picked up her and her friends up outside the Novak house. All three of them piled into back seat, chattering. “I should get one of those chauffeur caps,” he muttered to himself as he started driving away.

“I thought your brother was driving us,” Jess said, eyeing Dean suspiciously. She was on the end furthest from him. She was at least a head higher than Ruby, who was at the other window. Anna sat between them.

“Yeah, who’s this guy? His car’s, like, even older than Castiel’s,” Ruby snarked. She didn’t even pretend to whisper. 

“Hey,” Dean said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “My baby’s a classic.”

Anna sighed. “Guys, this is Dean, my brother’s booooy-friend.”

“I’m not his--” Dean started, but Jess and Ruby were already giggling at him. Dean groaned and glared at Anna’s smug smile in the mirror.

“You girls are all eighth graders, right? Any of you in my brother Sam’s class?”

The laughter stopped almost immediately. Anna hid a grin and said “Sam Winchester, right?”

“Yeah, brown hair, real smart … you know him?” The girls nodded. “Well, he used to love this car. He still does, but he pretends not to. He does this thing where he pretends he’s too cool to like something. Or someone. You know?” Jess and Ruby exchanged quick, bewildered looks with each other. Dean pulled up in front of the dance school and let them out with a wave. 

Anna leaned in the open passenger side window while the other girls ran into the school. “Nice one. Jess’s parents are picking her and Ruby up, so you don’t have to give them rides home.” 

“Yeah, okay. And I’m not Cas’s boyfriend!” 

Anna pouted. “He won’t make an honest man out of you? Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him.” She ran off before Dean could protest more. 

When he picked her up later, he decided not to continue an argument he clearly wasn’t going to win. Dean would have driven along in silence, but Anna wanted to know if he’d talked to Sam about his girlfriend issue.

“I tried. I asked him if there were any cute girls in his class, but he called me a perv and told me not to creep on middle schoolers.” 

Anna laughed. “You probably sounded like a perv.”

“Eh. I’ll get my mom to help. She likes to play yenta.” Dean sighed at the lull in conversation. “So, Ruby, huh? Why her and not Jess?”

Anna hummed in thought. “It’s complicated. I mean, Jess is pretty straight. I think Ruby only likes Sam because Jess likes Sam and Ruby kinda likes Jess. Though if Sam likes someone else I’ll take ‘em both, you know?”

“God, it’s like a soap opera,” Dean muttered.

“Also, have you seen Ruby? She’s stacked.” Anna cupped her hands loosely at her chest for emphasis. 

“Gah!” Dean yelped, scandalized. He put his hand to the side of his face to block the view and the mental image. “Now who’s the perv? Besides, you’ll get your own, right? You’re only what, like, thirteen?” 

“I’m fourteen, and that’s not the point. You and Cassie both have dicks but that’s not stopping you.” 

“Okay, no, not having this conversation. Nope. I’m not … Christ. Can we not …” Anna started laughing while Dean rubbed his forehead and tried to steer the discussion back. “Right, anyway, I gotta ask you something about your brother and I swear if you bring up his dick I’m going to pull over and make you walk the rest of the way.” 

Anna tried to contain her giggles and motioned for him to continue. 

“Okay, it’s about food …”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 22 I was thinking of [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fen-6lhrJs8). Thank you, Tumblr. [ return to text ]


	6. Chapter 6

Castiel felt his phone vibrate midway through American history but didn’t check it until after class was done. There was a text from Dean. 

_Blue Steel: Today a good day for me to bring you lunch?_

Cas’s stomach rumbled at the thought, but he had reservations. [23]

_Castiel: What are you bringing?_  
_Blue Steel: It’s a surprise._  
_Castiel: How about no._  
_Blue Steel: Awwww. I made it for you. :(_  
_Castiel: Super no._  
_Blue Steel: I'll eat it too so you know it isn't poisoned._

Cas paused and thought about it before replying. He wasn't sure if Dean was willing to risk himself for a prank. And he knew this was going to be terrible… but his curiosity got the better of him. If nothing else, he could always go buy lunch. 

_Castiel: OK_  
_Blue Steel: Sweet. Thx._

Castiel only had one more class before lunch, but it dragged. When the bell rang, he swung by his locker to stash his bag and get the pink coat. If he was having a lunch date, he might as well wear his gift. 

_Castiel: Where am I meeting you?_  
_Blue Steel: Cafeteria. Be there soon._

He shrugged the coat on and made his way there. Near the windows, there was a small table set up with a white tablecloth and electric candles. He went over to look at the sign. It said ‘Reserved for Castiel Novak’ in an elegant script. He sat down at one chair and tried to ignore the audience of students at the other tables. 

Dean came in a minute later carrying a long stemmed rose in a vase. “Shit, you’re here!” He put the rose down on the table, close to the window. “I’ll be right back,” he said, dashing back out. 

He returned with a covered platter and a huge grin. Cas kept his expression flat. “I know you think this is a trick,” Dean said, “but I talked to Anna to get your favorite foods and found one that I could actually manage. So they might be a little cold now but … uh…” Dean bit his lip and put the platter down on the table. “I mean, I hope I made them right,” he said quietly. 

Cas stared at him. He looked nervous, but also hopeful, maybe. Cas nodded at him and Dean pulled the top off the platter. On it were four sandwiches that looked suspiciously like something Gabriel used to cook. “You made ... ooey-gooeys.”

“Yeah, Anna said your brother used to make them for both of you. And they weren’t that hard. I mean, they’re a little weird, but…” Dean watched as Cas leaned away from the table and stopped talking.

Cas could feel the bile rising in his throat. He could vividly remember the last time Gabriel made the grilled peanut butter, jelly, and Velveeta monstrosities. Gabe forced him to eat one, and he’d gotten his revenge by throwing it back up into his lap. Cas could almost taste it, as he was sure his expression showed.

“They’re … not your favorite.” Dean looked completely crestfallen. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. He shut his eyes and covered his face with his hand. 

Cas gave a sideways glance to the other students, now snickering among themselves. “I, uh … they were Anna’s favorite.” He swallowed his disgust and took a deep breath. “Maybe she just misremembered.” 

Dean gave him a pained look. “Yeah, but … they’re not … fuck, I fucked up. I’m sorry.” He said it so quietly that Cas was sure he was the only one who heard. Dean got up and started to put everything away. “I’ll get you something else. I won’t be so damn stupid … fuck.”

Cas caught his hand before he could take the food away. “No, it’s okay. We can eat these.” Dean stared at him. “I mean, you made them for me, right? I should at least try them.”

“Really?” The hopeful look returned to Dean’s face. 

“Have you had them before?”

“No. I was gonna, but I burned the first batch and by the time these were done I had to drive in.” 

“Okay, then you have to sit down and eat with me.” 

“Yeah, of course.” Dean sat back down in his chair and took one of the sandwiches. 

Cas took one as well and gestured with it at Dean. “You first.”

Dean smiled and took a bite. He chewed and swallowed. Cas suppressed a shudder. “Hrm. Okay, I can see how this would be kinda kiddie food,” Dean said, going for another bite. “But they’re not bad.” 

Cas stared at his sandwich and let out a long sigh. He shut his eyes and took a bite. It was just as bad as he remembered, but he had much better control over his gag reflex now. He swallowed and opened his eyes. Dean was watching him. 

“So how are they? Did I get ‘em right?”

Cas sighed and nodded. “They’re … accurate. This is exactly how Gabriel used to make them.” Dean continued happily eating his, his eyes sparkling with pride. Cas shut his eyes, held his breath, and took another bite. 

He managed four bites before he realized that Dean was holding back a laugh. “What?” 

“Nothing,” Dean said, snickering. “Just don’t … just don’t puke on me, ok?” Castiel’s jaw dropped. Dean pushed his chair back and doubled over in laughter. 

“Oh, you asshole,” Cas said, getting up and away from the food. He grabbed the end of the tablecloth and tries to wipe the taste out of his mouth.

“I know, I should go out for drama club, right?” Dean schooled his face into a mask of despair. “I’ll bet I could manage one perfect tear if I thought hard enough about something sad.” 

“You owe me real food,” Cas said. “I’m not giving you a tape for this.” 

“I know, I know, I will. It was only going to work once, but it was so worth it.” Dean brought a bottle of water out of his bag and handed it over to him. 

Cas took a mouthful and swished it around in his mouth. He hesitated before spitting it out, eyeing Dean carefully. But instead he chose to open the window next to them and spit into the grass outside. “You’d better bring me something good, Winchester.”

“How about a burger from Missouri’s?”

“Now?”

“In a bit,” Dean said, picking his sandwich back up. “Let me finish my lunch first.” 

Cas gagged and sat back down. He watched as Dean finished the rest of the ooey-gooeys, including the one Cas abandoned. 

“They’re really not that bad,” Dean said around a mouthful. “Makes me want to try one of those other things Anna told me about … nutterflufferellas?”

“Oh my god,” Cas muttered. “Please don’t. Have some self respect.” 

They went out and Dean bought him a burger afterwards. Cas skipped a class to eat it at the pond behind the football field. Dean kept him company and threw fries to the ducks. 

“Why don’t you do wrestling any more?” Cas asked between mouthfuls. 

Dean sighed. “Just … not enough time, you know? Basketball and wrestling had scheduling conflicts with practices and games. It was one thing when it was JV, but now...”

“No, I get that,” Cas said. “But why pick basketball? You were much better at wrestling.” Dean gave him a side-eye. “What? I didn’t just go to matches because of the uniforms. Though the uniforms looked better, too.”

Dean groaned. “I guess it doesn’t matter now. I couldn’t stay in my weight class.”

Cas inhaled a bite of burger and started coughing. Dean slapped him on the back. “What?” He asked when he could breathe again. “What does that mean?”

“The coach wanted me to stay light, but I hit a growth spurt. I tried dieting, but I was like, hangry all the time. Then my mom got involved, ‘cause I turned down pie. And then my doctor …” He shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “I was just happier at not doing it, you know? Even if I was good at it. Maybe I’ll try again in college.” 

Cas nodded. “Makes sense.” He went back to eating his burger. “I should’ve known it had something to do with food.”

“Hey, man, lay off.” Dean lightly punched his shoulder. Cas grunted around his mouthful. “Me and your sister are buds now, remember? She’s told me stories about you trying to cram that ass into a pair of skinny jeans.” He slapped Cas on the thigh for emphasis.

Cas rolled his eyes. “Fine. But only because this is a damn fine burger.”

In the end, Dean agreed to type up Cas’s physics notes in exchange for another tape. Cas agreed not to strangle his little sister for revealing Gabriel’s culinary tortures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 23 Pun intended ... No it actually wasn't but I'm going to claim it was retroactively. [ return to text ]


	7. Chapter 7

By the end of April, Dean had most of his tapes back. In addition to driving Anna around for the month, he procured lunch for Cas every week, mowed the Novak lawn, typed up notes, and was generally Castiel’s errand boy. At first he was doing every favor in the most risque way possible, but after he got sunburned mowing Cas’s lawn shirtless, he gave up. Dean wasn’t counter-pranking him anymore. It felt like they’d fallen into a truce after all. 

“You up for another task for a tape?” Cas asked him on Thursday as Econ was letting out. 

“Sure.” 

“Good. Saturday afternoons I do a life drawing class at the community center. We need a model for this Saturday. You up for it? For another tape?”

Dean pursed his lips in consideration. “How long does it take?”

“You have to stand still for two hours, but you get breaks.” 

“Two hours? That’s my whole fucking afternoon.” 

“... for two tapes?”

“Done.”

Saturday afternoon, he showed up and followed Cas’s directions to the classroom. He was early and there was only one person there: a brunette in her thirties. She had a ravenous smile. 

“Hello, handsome,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“Uh, this is the figure drawing class, right? I’m here to model?”

Her eyes lit up. “Really? We don’t often get professionals in here.” She walked around him once, looking him over. 

“Oh, uh, I’m not…” Dean trailed off, blushing. 

“Well, you should be. You’ve got the face for it. And the build.” She smirked. “I’m Amara.”

“Dean,” he said, shuffling his feet. “Uh, what do I do?”

“First time?” She took him by the arm. “There’s a little room over here you can change in. I’ll bring you a robe.” 

“Wait, changed?” 

“Yes, the students need to work on anatomy.” She paused a moment. “You’re over eighteen, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Dean felt a blush rising. “Do you mean I need to be …”

“Then you should be nude, of course.” She reached over and grabbed a gray robe off a hook by the door.

Dean let himself be led to a small office. Amara gave him a quick pat on the backside before shutting the door. He did a double-take and assumed she was aiming higher. 

He’d been flirting with the idea of modeling naked, but assumed it would not be required. But now he was stripping off his jeans and shirt and folding them up. He stared down at his boxers. With a deep breath, he stripped them off and added them to the stack. He flexed his biceps a couple of times to try to cool himself down. 

He ran down a mental list of questions. How many students were in this class? Was Cas even going to be there? How was he going to keep himself from … reacting? Why didn’t Cas warn him about the cougar instructor? He threw on the robe and wished that he’d done a little more research into modeling before coming out. 

All the art students had already arrived. Dean watched from the door. There was a platform and a metal stool in the middle of a circle. He could see the back of Cas’s head, with his faded pink hair. 

Amara spotted him in the doorway and came over to usher him in. She led him over to the platform and gestured for him to climb up. “I can adjust the temperature if it’s too cold,” she said. He wasn’t cold, but something about her look made him shiver.

“I’m fine,” he said quietly, his hands hesitating at the robe’s belt. “How do … what do I do?”

She grinned. “We’ll do some short poses first, one minute warm-ups. Then we work our way up to longer ones. You’ll get some breaks in between.”

“Yeah, but, uh, what kind of poses?” 

She laughed and laid her hand on his arm. “You’re an athlete, right? Start with something like your stretches. Try twisting around a bit to make it interesting, but find a position that you can hold for a while.” She patted him on the shoulder and walked away.

“Super helpful,” Dean muttered. He still had his back to Castiel, and he refused to look behind him. He climbed up on the platform, inhaled deeply, and took off the robe. He draped it over the stool and started to mimic his regular stretches. 

Holding each pose for one minute wasn’t difficult. Dean managed to get through them by counting seconds in his head. He positioned himself so he wouldn’t look at Cas for any of them. Even when Cas was in his peripheral vision, he kept his eyes forward. Having everyone stare at him was intense, but not unbearable. They were all adults here, right? He could be professional about this. It wasn’t completely embarrassing. He felt his blood rush and flexed his muscles to tamp his reaction down. Dean was determined not to put humiliation on his list of turn-ons. 

Amara brought him a bottle of water at his first break. He tied the robe tight and sat at the edge of the platform. “You’re doing quite well for your first time,” she said with a smile. Dean wondered if she thought she was being encouraging or if she knew how pervy she sounded. “We’ll do five minute poses next. Think about how you want to position yourself.”

Dean sighed and let himself glance over at Cas as Amara walked away. He was glaring at her with a sour expression. Dean looked away before Cas turned back to face him. He drank some more water and climbed back up on the platform. 

Five minute poses weren’t that difficult. He counted seconds again, but most of his concentration was going towards ignoring Cas … trying very hard to be cool about this … thinking up revenge pranks. Once he hit upon the idea of another revenge prank he focused on that to alleviate the boredom. He turned the idea over in his head a few times. 

He’d come up with a few vague ideas by his next break. Posing wasn’t so bad. While he was up there, he could mostly ignore the audience. The room was a little cold, but upon consideration he decided that was a good thing. 

Amara came over to tell him the schedule. The next pose would be a ten-minute one, then a break, then a fifteen-minute one, another break, and last a thirty minute one. He looked at his wrist before remembering that he wasn’t wearing a watch. 

Amara laughed a bit at him and rubbed his shoulder. “In a rush? Girlfriend waiting for you in the car?” 

Dean shifted in his seat and ducked his head. “No, nothing like that,” he said, laughing nervously. 

He risked looking over at Cas. He had that same pissed expression and concentrated on organizing his pencils. Dean had a sudden thought: maybe Cas was pissed that Dean was actually doing this, and not embarrassed by it. Or maybe Cas was annoyed that the teacher was flirting with him. Dean turned his attention back to Amara. “So,” Dean started, trying to test his theory. “Who do you usually get to model for these?” 

“Mostly local college students,” she said. “Why? Think you’d want to do this more often?” 

“I, uh ...” He glanced back at Castiel, who hadn’t reacted. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you, um … do you have any suggestions for longer poses?” 

“Do you want something interesting? I could position you.” Without waiting for him to answer, she pulled him to his feet and back to the platform. She held out her hand for the robe. Feeling trapped, he handed it to her. She folded it up and put it down as a cushion, posing him on one knee down and twisting his midsection so he was looking back towards her desk.

“Do you think you can hold that for ten minutes?” She said, stepping down off the platform. Dean gulped and nodded. He concentrated on staring at the brickwork on the wall behind her. He could see Castiel in his peripheral vision, hunched over his sketchbook. Dean realized he hadn’t been paying enough attention to see if Cas reacted. He was too distracted by the teacher. When he glanced down at her, she was smirking at him. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. 

After his next break, Amara suggested a semi-reclining pose for fifteen minute. With one knee up and leaning on one arm, he started to ache partway through. Dean stared at the tile for fifteen minutes with a lump in his throat. All he could hear was the scritching of pencils on paper. 

Castiel repositioned himself so he was slightly between Dean and Amara. The tile Dean was staring at was two squares down from the legs of his chair. He could watch Cas’s feet as they moved around. He was wearing black work boots that he’d painted on. The outside of the right one had a neon blue flower blooming off ivy that curled around the heel. There was a little cartoon bee painted on the toe. Some of the paint was flaking off. Then Cas shifted in his seat, tucking his right foot up and letting his left. It had some kind of writing on it, but the angle was wrong and he couldn’t quite read it. Also, it didn’t look like the Latin alphabet--maybe it was Cyrillic? But before he could figure it out, the time for his pose was up. 

Dean put his robe back on and got down again. He needed a real break. The bathroom wasn’t far away and he assured Amara that he’d be right back. 

He regretted it as soon as his feet touched the cold tile of the bathroom floor. He shuddered, but decided that he wasn’t going to be able to hold it for another half hour. He took care of business and tiptoed around. The sink was automatic, as was the soap dispenser, and he scrubbed his hands even though he hadn’t touched anything. Scrubbing his feet probably wasn’t an option. He got a paper towel and used it so he didn’t have to touch anything else with his bare hands.

Dean shivered again when he exited the bathroom. He looked up and Cas was a few steps away, looking concerned. “Are you ok?” Cas asked him.

“I’m fine,” Dean said through clenched teeth. “Half an hour left. You better get a good seat.” He shouldered his way past Cas and back into the classroom. Dean sat on the stool for this one, hunched over and staring at his toes. It wasn’t quite The Thinker but he was tired of coming up with creative positions. 

Cas came back in a minute after everyone else started sketching and moved his seat so that he was slightly in front of Dean again. About five minutes in, he stretched out so that his boots were close to the platform, but Dean didn’t try to study the weird writing again. He stared at the freckles on his calves again, and the unevenness of how he’d clipped his toenails. He ran down a couple of songs in his head, but it was hard to resist twitching his fingers along to the chords so he stopped. Did it matter? Were they sketching every little bit of him? Was someone watching his fingers? The teacher would probably reprimand him if he moved, and the thought of what that would entail made him a little queasy. 

His shoulders and back started hurting after about fifteen minutes. He got into the ‘play through the pain’ mentality that made his better coaches so angry. But sitting still for half an hour wouldn’t hurt him. Heck, he’d even stretched properly for this. Naked. In front of about a dozen strangers and … Cas. Did any of them have cell phones? Did any of them take pictures? 

Dean felt a cold pit in his chest that distracted him from the ache in his back. He was going to tell Cas that after this, he was done with pranks; Cas officially won. He didn’t want to play this game anymore. Maybe he could get Cas to just give him back the rest of the tapes if he surrendered. 

People around him started packing their things and getting up, one by one. He kept his head down. Every other time when his pose was over Amara told him and she hadn’t said anything yet. He glanced over and saw Cas was still there, sketching. Dean started mentally counting seconds again. 

He got to two hundred when Amara cleared her throat. “Oh, I guess we’re over time. You can all pack up now.” He rolled his shoulders and looked up. It was five past, and most of the people were already leaving. Cas was still there, slowly putting away his supplies. 

“Come here, Dean” Amara said, sitting on the edge of her desk. “I need to talk to you for a minute.”

Dean tied up his robe and hopped down from the platform. He passed Cas without looking at him, and stood a few feet away from Amara. His back still felt stiff and his feet were cold. 

“How’d you do?” She asked. “Quite the rush, isn’t it?” 

Dean shrugged. “I guess.” A couple more people packed up their things and left. Dean crossed his arms and waited for her to continue.

“Well, you were quite good. I’d like to have you come back,” she said, smiling and running her fingers over the edge of the desk. “Or maybe come to some of my other classes. You might find some people who’d be willing to take you on as a private model, once you got some experience.” Her smiled faded a bit as she glanced over Dean’s shoulder. “Yes, Mr. Novak?”

He glanced back. Cas stepped up and put his hand on the curve of Dean’s back. “Nothing, just waiting for Dean to be done,” he said. He rubbed his hand up and down Dean’s spine. “You all set, hun?” 

Dean leaned into him and relaxed a little. Cas wrapped his arm around Dean’s shoulders, grabbing onto his bicep possessively. “Yeah, I think so. Sorry, ma’am, we’ve got to go.” He let Cas guide him out the room. Dean nodded at the little office to the side and Cas didn’t let go of until they were both inside. 

Once the door was shut and locked, Dean sat down heavily at the desk. He put his head in his hands and leaned over, letting out a shaky breath. It took him a minute to focus. “Look, Cas …” he started.

“I am so sorry,” Cas said quietly. “This was not … She wasn’t supposed to be teaching today. Our regular teacher, Joshua, he’s … well, he’s far more chill.” 

Dean let out a high-pitched laugh and looked up. “So I wasn’t supposed to be ogled by the femme fatale out there?” 

“God no. She’s had a lot of complaints about, er, professionalism. And her lack of it.” Cas shifted his feet. “And you weren’t supposed to, uh …” He gestured up and down at Dean.

“What, be naked?”

Cas nodded. “Joshua is much more like, ‘eh, if you want?’ About it.” Cas crossed and uncrossed his arms. “I mean, not that I minded.”

Dean smiled. “I was thinking about it anyway, but …” He shuddered again. “Ugh, I still have to give her back the robe.” 

“I can do that. I can wait outside while you get changed,” he said, turning towards the door.

“Nah,” Dean said, standing up. He started to untie the belt of the robe. “Not like you didn’t spend the last two hours watching DeeDubs[24] hanging in the breeze.” 

Cas stopped and looked back at Dean. “Wait, DeeDubs? That … that’s what you call ...?” He gestured below Dean’s waist. 

“Crap.” Dean facepalmed. “Pretend you didn't hear that.” 

“Not a chance.” Cas grinned. Dean started getting dressed. Cas looked away and thought about the name. “DeeDubs, like, your initials?”

“No!” Dean threw the robe at his head.

“What does it stand for then, Deanie-Weenie?” Dean looked down quickly, busying himself with figuring out if his shirt was inside out. “It does!” Cas started laughing. “That’s like something an eight-year-old would come up with.”

“I was four and the name just stuck in my head, ok?”

“So to speak.”

“Ugh,” Dean pulled his shirt on. “Okay, so what’s yours?”

“My what?”

“Your dick nickname.” Dean smirked. “Your dickname.” 

Cas groaned, and Dean felt proud of himself. “What makes you think I even have …”

“Aww, c’mon Cas,” Dean said, lacing up his sneakers. He pulled on his jacket and they started out towards the parking lot. “You just spent two hours counting the freckles on my ass, you can tell me what you call your one-eyed monster.” 

“Well, it’s not that.” Cas’s phone chimed and he checked it. “Damn it, Gabriel,” he muttered. 

“What’s up?”

“Ah …” Cas sighed. “My brother is home for the weekend and using the car. He was supposed to pick me up, but he’s a flake.”

“You need a ride?”

“Would you?” 

“Sure,” Dean said, grinning. “Just answer my question.” 

Cas groaned. He looked around suspiciously, but the hallway was empty. “I call it, uh, my angel blade.” 

Dean barked out a laugh. “Wow,” he said. “Just, wow. Is it ‘cause it’s so penetrating?” 

“You can fuck right off, DeeDubs.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean opened the door for him. “Do you have my tapes for today’s escapade? Think I could get extra for enduring that sexual harassment like a champ?”

“Oof, yeah. That’s fair. They’re at my house. You can just have the rest.” 

“Awesome,” Dean said. They climbed into the Impala. Cas put his bag at his feet as Dean started the car. “Thanks for not actually screwing with my car, by the way.” He pulled out of the parking space and started off towards Cas’s house.

“I’m not suicidal,” Cas said. He leaned back in the seat and ran his hands over the bench seat. “This car is something else. Nice to finally get to ride in it.”

“You think this is nice, you should see the back seat,” Dean said absentmindedly as he checked his mirrors to pull into traffic. His brain caught up with him a moment later and he kept his eyes on the road, refusing to look over to see Cas’s reaction. 

But Cas just laughed, loudly. “This car must get you a lot of tail, huh?”

Dean shrugged. “Not as much, lately,” he said. He cleared his throat and changed the subject. “So, how'd your sketches come out?”

“Good, I think. They'll suit my purposes.”

“What will you do with them?”

“Turn them into custom furry porn to sell on DeviantArt.”

Dean choked and swerved, but quickly regained control of the car. Cas started laughing again. “Christ, not while I'm driving, asshole.” He reached over and whapped Cas on the arm. After a moment, he said “You're not really serious about that, are you?”

Cas laughed some more. “You'll never know!”

* * *

They pulled into the Novak driveway right behind the Continental. “Son of a bitch,” Cas said as he got out. He stormed into the house, Dean trailing behind him. “Gabriel!” 

Cas’s older brother was lounging in the den. He was watching a movie and eating a huge bowl of popcorn. He looked up when Cas shouted. 

“How is this ‘unavoidably detained’? You were supposed to pick me up!” 

“What I was supposed to do,” Gabriel said, putting the popcorn aside and standing up, “was have a nice afternoon alone in the house. But instead, I find a box full of these!” He reached under the coffee table and pulled out one of the screaming ducks. He gave it a squeeze and threw it at Cas, who batted it out of the air. It bounced off an open door and down the steps to the basement, screaming the whole way. 

Dean started laughing. “You kept my duck bomb?” 

“Of course I kept your duck bomb. It was ingenious.” Cas flashed Dean a smile.

“Oh, so you’re to blame for this!” Gabe brought another duck out and charged over to wave it in Dean’s face. “I’m all geared up for a nice wank--”

“Woah, TMI dude,” said Dean.

“--and what do I find in place of my porn stash? Dozens of these damn things.” Gabriel shook his head. “If I develop a new fetish because of this, I’m blaming you both.” 

Cas sighed and covered his face. “Dean, my brother Gabriel,” he said, gesturing from one to the other.

“Oh, this is Dean, huh?” Gabe said with a grin. Dean raised his eyebrows. “Anna’s told me about you…”

“Fuck,” Cas muttered. He grabbed Dean by the hand and dragged him away. “I don’t know why he had to come home this weekend.” Dean followed him up the stairs. 

“That door better stay open or I’m telling Dad!” Gabriel called up after them. “And where is my porn, Cassie?” 

Cas pushed Dean towards his room and turned around to shout down the stairs. “It was degrading and I threw it out.” He followed Dean in and started rummaging through his closet. 

“Did you really throw out his porn?” Dean asked, sitting down on the edge of his bed.

Cas snickered. “No, I gave it to Meg.” He pulled a shoebox out from the back of the closet. Cas sat down next to Dean and opened it up. There were a bunch of knick knacks in it, with the last few tapes all stacked together. He handed them all to Dean.

“So, uh… are we even?” Dean asked.

Cas sighed and kicked his feet. “I guess.” He pulled a Rubix cube out of the shoe box and started playing with it.

Dean looked around the room. The pink trench coat was hanging on the back of the door. One wall was covered in posters and sketches. Dean scratched the back of his head. “So, you know where you’re going to college yet?” 

“Yeah, $UNIVERSITY.”[25]

Dean lit up. “Hey, me too!” He turned to face Cas. “Maybe, uh … what are you gonna major in?”

“Fine arts, probably.” Cas said, tossing the finished puzzle back in the shoe box and poking through it again. He grabbed a loop of interwoven metal rings and started to play with it. 

“Oh, yeah. I’m gonna do engineering.” Dean watched Cas twist and roll the loop around his fingers.

“It’s a pretty big school,” Cas said, keeping his eyes down. “I mean, they totally different departments. Like, on opposite sides of the campus.”

“Yeah. Still, we might see each other around.”

“Maybe.” 

Dean sighed. His shoulders felt tight and his stomach rumbled. “I guess I should probably get home. We’ve got that Econ paper due on Wednesday.”

“Yeah, I should work on that, too.”

“Yeah.” They sat there in silence for a minute before Dean stood up. “I’ll see you Monday, then.”

Cas nodded and looked up briefly. “See you.”

Dean passed Gabriel in the upstairs hallway. He rushed past him, avoiding eye contact. Once back in his car, he put the tapes away and drove home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 24 The only excuse I have for this is that maybe I was drunk when I wrote it. [ return to text ]  
> 25 My inner geek is showing (like the footnotes weren't proof enough). Substitute your own preferred university by running 'set UNIVERSITY=X' at the command prompt. [ return to text ]


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added one more paragraph a couple of days after I initially posted this chapter. It was originally in the beginning of Chapter 9 but it makes more sense here.

April turned into May and graduation was approaching fast. Cas put minimal effort into term papers. He only studied for finals to set a good example for Anna. When he passed Dean in the hallway, they gave each other polite nods and moved on. No insults, no pranks, nothing. 

“You seem bummed,” Meg said one day after lunch. They were hanging out in the control booth of the theatre. “I mean, not that I care.” She was running down a list of written settings and tests for the equipment.

“I’m fine,” Cas said, rolling his shoulders. There was no reason for him to be down. Things were fine. He was fine.

“What’re you gonna do for prom?”

Cas sighed and leaned back against the wall. “Skip? I dunno. It seems kinda… meh. You going?”

“Yeah, think so.” 

“Stag?”

Meg laughed. “One of the three wise men asked me.” 

Cas raised an eyebrow. “... Balthazar?”

Meg laughed. “Unless you know a Melchior or Gaspar, yeah.”

“Wait, really? That’s unexpected.”

“Not really,” Meg said, sorting through some cords. “We’ve been dating all year.” 

“Wha--” Cas stood up straight. “You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not. You didn’t notice?” Meg stared at him, and Cas shook his head. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a terrible friend? Ugh.” Meg tossed her list aside. “Okay, I’m done. Want to cut?”

“Fuck yes.” They took the shortcut behind the auditorium to go by his locker. He unlocked it quickly and pulled out his pink coat. 

“You still have that? Didn’t Winchester ever give you back your tan one?”

Cas sighed. “I should get it back from him,” he admitted.

“Yeah. Leave that monstrosity behind. We’ll get caught.”

“Like it matters.” Cas shrugged and put the coat back. He saw an envelope with his name on it in the door. It looked like it had been shoved in and gotten wedged between the slats and a pink photo frame. “Huh,” he said, opening it. Inside was a prom ticket, an appointment card for a tux fitting, and a short note. 

Meg peeked around his arm to see the ticket. “Looks like someone’s going to prom after all. Who’s it from?”

Cas read the note aloud. “Tux is paid for. Prom? --DW” 

“Awww, how sweet. I might just throw up.” Meg grinned.

Cas stared at the note. “I … but we agreed, no more pranks.” He flipped each piece of paper over to look for more information. “Do you think he’s serious?” 

“Who cares? Free prom ticket and snazzy outfit.” Meg tugged at his arm. “Now let’s ditch. I want some pizza.” 

Cas tucked everything back into the envelope. He put on his pink coat despite Meg’s protests and hid it in a pocket. 

* * *

His tux-fitting appointment went smoothly. Dean had picked out blue accessories for him. The tailor said they matched his eyes. He brought it up to Balthazar the next day. 

“Of course he did. He may be an oaf, but he’d have to be blind not to notice your eyes, Cassie.”

“He’s not an oaf,” Cas muttered. Bal cocked an eyebrow at him but didn’t respond. They were in art class and sketching the same still life. Cas focused on the weave of the basket in it. “But, prom? Really?”

“Yes, Meg told me,” Bal was using colored pencils and concentrating on the fruit. “Not much of a ‘promposal’, was it? God, I hate that word.”

Cas nodded. “Given our history, I would’ve expected something embarrassing.” He shrugged. “I suppose there still time for the pig’s blood.”

“Oooo, yes. Prom Royal Couple. You two should go for it.” 

Cas scrunched up his face in disgust. “Is that still a thing? King and queen?” 

“It’s gender neutral sovereigns this year. You should campaign.”

“I’m not campaigning.” Cas tapped his pencil against his lips. “Are the votes still on paper, though? I could forge some.”

Bal laughed. “I do love the way your mind works sometimes. They’re on cardstock in the prom committee’s lock-up. I’ll steal one for you.” 

“You’re a good friend.”

“Better than you. Meg tells me you didn’t know we were dating.”

Cas shook his head. “Nope, you’re not dating. You’re both just fucking with me. Just like Dean and this prom thing.” He covered his ears with his hands and started humming when Bal tried to protest. He kept it up until Bal poked him sharply with a pencil.

“Stop that or I’ll start texting you details of our sex life,” he said, glaring. “I’ll have you know that Mistress Masters really does like to be called that …”

“Gah, no! I yield.” Cas sighed and they both went back to sketching. At the end of class, he started up the conversation again. “What kinds of things do you do to take someone to prom? Other than buy tickets and a tux.”

“Flowers. A corsage and a boutonniere.”

“Are you doing that for Meg?”

“God no. We’re getting matching flasks instead. Engraved.” Bal smirked. “Hers is going to say ‘Queen Bitch.’”

“What’s yours going to say? ‘Dickhead?’”

“Probably.”

Cas slung his bag over his shoulder and they walked together to the next class. “Okay, flowers. Should I get flowers for us? I don’t know. Maybe I could make something.”

“There’s also the limo,” Balthazar said. “Arrive in style!” He threw his arms out in emphasis and barely missed hitting a freshman. 

“I could get a limo,” Cas said, perking up. 

“You could share ours?”

Cas paused for a moment at the door to their classroom. He imagined the four of them in a limo together and shuddered. “No, I think we’d better get our own.”

Bal nodded. “I regretted offering the second the words left my mouth. Meg would never have allowed it.”

* * *

For the rest of the day, Cas kept sneaking out his phone to research limo rates and other prom-related things. Theirs included dinner, so that was one thing he had didn’t have to worry about. There was also going to be a photographer to take prom portraits. Cas decided that was something that had to happen. 

At the end of the day, he loitered near the entrance of the school texting Meg. He wanted to know about redoing his hair color. Should he try to match the blue of the tux accessories? Should they do it at home again, or have it professionally colored? What about style? And if he was going to have anything professionally done, should he get one of those straight-razor shaves that the websites talked about? 

Meg wasn’t answering. He stared at his phone for a minute, trying to think up another question. From right behind him, Dean cleared his throat. Cas jumped, but recovered quickly. “Hello, Dean.” 

“Yeah, uh. Hey.” Dean stared at him. Cas wondered if he had green accessories for his own tux. “So … prom …” 

Cas nodded. “Yeah. I mean, yes. Okay. Prom.” He felt himself start to blush. “I can … I mean I was going to fix my hair. For pictures. I could dye it back to its natural color. If you want.”

Dean’s eyes wandered over his hairline. The pink and purple had faded and his mohawk had grown out. Cas ran his hands over it nervously. “What is your natural color?” Dean asked. “Brown?”

“Yeah. Kinda dark.” He shrugged. “Or I could do blue again.”

Dean ducked his head and scuffed his shoe against the pavement. “Yeah, you should go blue again.” He looked up and smiled. “It’d look good.”

He grinned back. “Okay, yeah. Yeah, I will.” They stared at each other for a bit. Castiel’s phone buzzed with a text, but he ignored it. “So I can get a limo to pick you up …” 

“No, no limo,” Dean said, his smile fading. “Don’t rent a limo. We’re taking Baby. Got it?” 

“Your car,” Cas said. His head buzzed a little. Of course Dean would want to take his car.

“Yeah. I know how much you like her,” he said with a wink.

“I never did get to check out the back seat.”

Dean blushed and his jaw dropped. They locked eyes again. Cas felt his face color as well. “I gotta go,” Dean said, rushing down the stairs. He got about twenty feet away and turned around. “Don’t forget! No limo!” He turned and ran. 

* * *

Castiel’s frantic texts to Balthazar and Meg went unanswered all afternoon. He was pacing the house trying to analyze his conversation with Dean. He needed an outside perspective on it and his two best friends were probably off banging each other. Finally, in desperation, he called Gabriel. 

His brother answered the phone after two rings. “Cassie!” There was a television or video playing in the background. Gabriel sounded exhausted and over-caffeinated. “What’s up, little bro? Distract me from studying.”

“I need advice.”

“And you called me? I’m honored! Was everyone else busy?”

“Yes. Anna’s not even home yet and no one else is answering my texts.”

“I’m not as honored. Okay, what’s got you so desperate that you called me about it?”

Cas rubbed his forehead. “Do you remember the last time you were home, the guy that came over? Dean?”

“The one you took up to your room?” Gabe sounded like he had something in his mouth. The visual of him sucking on a lollipop came to mind.

“Yeah.”

“And then completely ignored while he flirted with you?”

Castiel stopped and stared at the wall as Gabe’s words caught up to him. “Wait. What? No, he wasn’t flirting...”

“Bruh!” He took the candy out of his mouth with a pop. “I know what I heard. I am an expert eavesdropper.”

“Yeah, but we have this thing…” Castiel started to explain their prank war, but Gabe interrupted him. 

“I know all that. Anna’s been sending me reports. Some of that stuff is gold.” He hummed in appreciation. “I mean, not as good as my stuff, but great for an amateur.”

“Okay, but …” Cas sighed. “It’s all a joke, right? He’s not really flirting with me.” He started up the stairs to his room.

“I dunno man. Alone in your room, no one to impress? I think he was trying to make a move.”

Cas grunted in frustration. “Okay, but … he asked me to prom.” He explained about the note in the locker, shutting his bedroom door behind him.

“Woohoo. Way to bring out the big guns.”

“Do you think he’s serious?” Cas chewed his lip. He sat down at his desk chair so he could spin it as he thought.

“I don’t know the guy, Cassie.” Gabe sighed and returned to sucking on his candy. “But I think if it was a prank he would’ve asked you out all public, y’know? Not given you a chance to turn him down without some embarrassment.”

“Yeah … yeah, I guess.” Cas leaned back in the chair, putting his feet up on the desk. “He’s driving, too. I was gonna rent us a limo but he said not to. And he likes my hair blue …”

“Sounds like you’re pretty gone on him, too.” 

Cas sighed. “Fuck. When did that happen?” He heard Gabriel laugh at him. “But what do I do, though? He’s paying for everything and now he’s driving, too. I was looking up prom stuff online and they’re talking about groups and after parties and…”

“Look, the prom’s at the Hilton downtown again this year, right?”

“Yeah?”

“So rent a room there for that night. Skip the after party. Leave a change of clothes up there, some condoms and lube.” Gabriel snickered. “If things go well, you’ll be prepared.”

“And if it is another prank, I don’t have to go far to escape it and I’m not stranded without a ride.” Cas pushed off of the desk and spun the chair around once.

“You thinking he’s gonna pull a Carrie?”

“He’ll be out the tux deposit if he does, so the jokes on him.” 

“That’s the spirit.” He could hear the smile in Gabe’s voice. “Now I better get back to studying. Later, bro.”

Cas hung up the phone. He felt a little more confident about his plan and pushed down the anxious doubts that kept creeping up on him.

* * *

Over the next week, Cas completely switched gears from being ‘meh’ about prom to completely invested. He wanted to know the theme, the colors, the timing. How did the vote for prom sovereigns work? What was expected of the royal couple? Did people get there right when it started, or was it better to come later?

Meg quickly tired of the questions. At lunch, he started asking about the band before she’d sat down at the table. “Clarence, for the love of god, shut up about prom.” 

Castiel snapped his mouth shut. He hunched over his sandwich and nodded. “Sorry,” he said. 

Hannah patted him on the shoulder. “He’s just excited,” she said gently. “He’s never had a real date before.” Meg laughed and Cas glared at Hannah. She blinked at him and tilted her head. “Was that funny? Why was that funny?”

“I have dated before, Hannah.”

“Oh. When?” 

“I wouldn’t call hooking up with your co-stars at cast parties dating, Cassie,” Balthazar said, sitting down. “And you haven’t had any of those for months. I _wonder_ what’s been distracting you.” Meg continued laughing.

Cas grumbled a bit and returned his attention to his food. Bal handed Meg a box of sushi and they ate in silence. After they were done, Bal slide an envelope out of his bag and across to Cas. “As promised. Tell no one. You don’t want to know who I had to blow for this.”

Meg waggled her eyebrows at Bal. “You took pictures, right?” 

Hannah sat up and looked between the two of them, alarmed. “What?”

Balthazar and Meg both made serious faces. “I was being facetious, Hannah dear,” Bal said. “I blew no one and did nothing remotely underhanded.” He hid his face behind his hand and mouthed the words ‘of course’ to Meg. 

Cas rolled his eyes. He slid the envelope into his backpack. Once it was shielded from the rest of the cafeteria, he peeked inside. It was a prom royalty voting card, printed on cardstock, and a USB drive. Cas grinned and nodded at Bal. His weekend art project was set.

“Okay, so, your hair,” Meg said, gesturing at his fading dye-job. Balthazar nodded along with her.

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about prom stuff,” Cas said, setting his backpack down. 

Meg stood up and walked around behind him. “Let me pretend this is unrelated, will you?” She combed through his hair with her fingers. Cas leaned into it as she raked her nails across his scalp. “This is getting long. You want to cut it before we dye it?” she smirked. “Or leave it long enough to hold on to?”

Cas coughed and shifted in his seat. “I’m, uh, seeing the appeal of that.” Bal gave him a wink. 

Meg slapped the back of his head and sat down again. “Let’s do your hair this weekend to give it time to grow out if I fuck it up, ok?” She smirked. “Or do you want to wait so you don’t spoil it for Deeeeean?”

Cas shook his head, smiling slightly. “This weekend is fine.” 

When he got home that evening, he checked out the stuff Balthazar had procured. The drive had the vector graphic file used to print the cards. He compared cardstock to some of the other things he had on hand to find the right weight and color. It didn’t take long. He pulled out his phone to text Balthazar about it.

_Cas: You didn’t have to make it so easy for me_  
_Cas: I could have recreated the card_  
_Cas: You want to tell me where they were printed, too?_  
_Balthy: Johnson’s on Elm._  
_Cas: Where’s the challenge in this?_  
_Balthy: Write each one up in different handwriting_  
_Balthy: Also stuffing the box will be hard_  
_Balthy: Iykwim_

Cas snickered. He spun in his chair and thought about it. He could probably get a couple of people to help him turn in extra votes. He opened up his laptop to solicit accomplices and was surprised by a couple of prom-related group invitations.

_Cas: Did you set up the dw/cn 4 prom kings facebook [25] group?_  
_Cas: Or the casdean prom royalty one?_  
_Cas: …_  
_Balthy: Not me._  
_Cas: There are 3 of these_  
_Cas: What’s destiel?_  
_Cas: No wait I get it_  
_Cas: That’s cute_  
_Balthy: Meg says not her either_  
_Cas: There are 4 groups campaigning for us as prom royal couple_  
_Balthy: Think it’s Dean?_  


He sighed. It probably was. Or maybe one of Dean’s friends. This sounded like Charlie. 

_Cas: You know what_  
_Cas: It’s fine_  
_Balthy: That’s mature of you_  
_Cas: Want to help me mix up buckets of fake blood just in case?_  
_Balthy: Nevermind_  


Cas grinned and focused on his ballot-stuffing plan. He started by practicing switching up his handwriting. Every time he wrote Dean’s initials, he snickered.

Over the next two weeks, Cas did as much as he could to stuff the ballot box without arousing suspicion. He decided to avoid the Facebook[26] groups that were about him and Dean. It was not the kind of attention he’d expected from their prank war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 25 Kids do not use the Facebook. I am old. Pretend it is a modern social media platform instead.  [ return to text ]
> 
> 26 If you had been cool, author, you would have put this in as another environment variable, like $SOCIAL_MEDIA ... For some definitions of cool.  [ return to text ]


	9. Chapter 9

Castiel knew his tux fit. He’d tried it on when he picked it up. But now the dress shirt wouldn’t button up right. 

“You missed a button on the bottom,” Anna said from the doorway. 

He looked down and counted. She was right. There were too many damn buttons on this shirt. “Thanks,” he said, redoing them.

“Dad wanted to know why you weren’t dressed yet. He wants pictures.” 

“That would be why.” Cas pulled on the blue vest and buttoned it up. It matched his hair nicely. “I deliberately waited until the last minute to avoid those.”

“Really?” Anna smirked. “You’re not just nervous?”

Cas shrugged. Next was the tie. He brought up the video for the Eldredge knot on his computer again. He fiddled with it in the mirror a couple of times. Anna brought out her phone to video him trying it. After two tries, it still looked terrible and uneven. “Fuck,” he said under his breath. Then, louder, “Will you help me with this?”

Anna shook her head and grinned. “I could go get Dad.”

“No!” He pulled the tie off. “But go distract him, maybe?” Cas tried using a coat hanger to tie a simpler knot and then transfer it to his own neck. One end was far too long. Cas swore again and checked the time. Dean was due to pick him up any minute. He gave up on his tie, grabbed his jacket, and rushed down the stairs.

There was a tall mirror in the front entryway. Cas tried to tie his tie again and failed. He gave up and pulled the jacket on. Anna was in the kitchen running interference with their father. He owed her one. Castiel checked his pockets one last time to make sure he had everything: phone, credit card, license, prom ticket, and two keycards were accounted for. 

Cas heard the roar of the Impala’s engine coming up the street and bolted out the door before anyone could waylay him for pictures. Dean had barely stopped the car when Cas pulled the passenger door open. He slid into the car and buckled up quickly, waving Dean to drive away. They pulled away and Cas texted his family to let them know that he’d left. 

Dean looked over and grinned. He had his jacket unbuttoned, with an emerald green vest and tie under it. Cas grinned back. “I think my dad wanted to have one of those classic date-intimidation scenes,” he explained.

“Well, thanks for sparing me that,” Dean said. He drummed his hands on the steering wheel in time to the music. He was playing one of his recovered tapes. “So, yeah. This is cool. This is gonna be cool.”

Cas laughed. “We need to get those awful couples portraits when we get there.”

“You gotta fix your tie if we’re gonna do that,” Dean said, glancing at him.

“I tried. I couldn’t figure it out.” He undid the tie and pulled it off. “It either came out too loose or too tight or one end was too long. Backwards was actually the closest I got.”

“You know you could’ve just taken it off and flipped it over, right?”

Cas looked at the undone tie in his hands. “Well, _now_ I do.” He sighed.

Dean laughed. “Yeah. This is gonna be awesome.” He was quiet for a bit while he maneuvered the car onto the highway and once they were up to speed he cleared his throat. “So, yeah. Thanks for letting me drive Baby. I had to do something after you got the tickets and the tuxes.” 

Cas froze. “I … I didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“I didn’t get the tickets. Or the tuxes.”

Dean furrowed his brow. “But your name was on the note.”

Castiel pulled the envelope out of his pocket and held it up. “Like this note? Mine says it’s from you.” He reread it to double check. “Well, ‘DW.’ You can see my confusion.” 

Dean chewed his lip. “Someone else got us to go to prom together. Fuck.” Dean hit the steering wheel. “I totally fell for it.”

“Somebody set us up,” Cas said. He let out a shuddering breath and suddenly felt cold. “You weren’t actually asking me out.” 

Dean kept staring straight ahead at the sparse traffic. He drove for for about a mile. Cas glanced up and him and saw his jaw flex. “I mean ...” He gulped “You weren’t asking me out, either.” 

Cas turned to look at him. Dean’s cheeks were pink and he kept glancing over at Cas. He pulled the car off the highway at a rest stop and parked it in the empty end of the lot. 

“Here,” Dean said, pulling the tie out of Cas’s hands. “Let me.” He slid over to sit next to Cas. Dean flipped Cas’s collar up, looped the tie around his neck, and made a quick, neat knot. He ran his hands along the edge of the collar as he fixed it all into place and Cas blinked slowly.

“Did you …” Cas licked his lips. “Did you want me to ask you out?”

Dean was staring at his lips. “Yeah.” He exhaled slowly and moved his hand over to rest on the back of the bench seat. He hadn’t moved away. He traced down the tie with his fingers. 

“Dean.” Cas smiled and tilted his head slightly. “Will you go to prom with me?”

“Nah,” Dean said, grinning. “I’d rather just park.” He grabbed the tie and pulled Cas into a kiss. Cas hummed happily into it, sliding his hand up Dean’s arm. He ran his fingers over Dean’s neck and jaw and around the shell of his ear. Dean’s tongue licked at Cas’s lips and his hand dropped from the tie to Cas’s thigh. 

Cas put both hands on the sides of Dean’s face and pushed him back. “I do want to go to prom, actually.” Dean grinned and ran his hand up to Cas’s hips. “And you’re going to ruin our tuxes if you keep that up.”

Dean groaned and pulled away. “Yeah, you’re right.” He fixed Cas’s tie again. “I want those dumb pictures.” 

“And we have to figure out who set us up.”

“Yeah. They don’t know who they’re messing with.” Dean’s smile turned a little dopey. 

“It’s like they haven’t been paying attention. Though I suppose they were banking on us not actually talking to each other.”

Dean nodded. “Just to make sure, you really did steal those tapes from my car, right?”

“Of course. Just like you really stole my coat.”

“It’s in the trunk,” Dean said, turning back to start the car. “Your paintings, too. I have ‘em rolled up in one of those artist portfolio tubes for you.”

Cas grinned. “I did the thing with your gym uniform and the lube,” he said.

“I knew it,” Dean said, starting to ease through the parking lot. “That was such a pain in the ass to unwrap.”

“I had to get you back for all those damn songs on Valentine’s Day.”

Dean stopped the car short. “What? That wasn’t me.” He looked over at Cas. “Wait, you didn’t buy all those songs for me to sing?”

Cas frowned, the wheels in his head turning. “Motherfucker. How long have they been playing us?” He sighed, then grinned as an idea came to him. “I have an idea for how to get them back.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“No, but it doesn’t matter.” He gestured at the road. “Let’s get going and I’ll tell you about it.”

Dean started driving again. “And after prom, maybe I can finally show you the back seat.” He winked. 

Cas reached across the back of the seats and ran his fingers through Dean’s hair. “Actually, I got a room at the hotel. We could go there.”

Dean’s eyes went wide. “Damn. Did you bring a change of clothes and lube, too?”

“Of course. And condoms.” Cas shrugged at Dean’s laugh. “I mean, if we’re going to put this much effort into our relationship, we might as well be getting laid.”

“... Awesome.”

Cas looked him up and down, suddenly remembering where he’d seen the shade green that match Dean’s vest. “Are you wearing those panties?” 

Dean glanced over and waggled his eyebrows. “Guess you’ll find out later.”

* * *

Dean and Cas walked into prom hand-in-hand. They arrived fashionably late, but not rumpled enough to kick off the rumor mill. Cas dragged Dean to the line for prom portraits, sparing quick waves to the friends they passed. They went through a series of poses and awkward faces that ended with them both cracking up while the photographer snapped candids. 

Dinner was a buffet with open seating. Dean found seats near Charlie and Gilda while Cas filled up two plates. The girls were wearing complementary gauzey gowns and butterfly facepaint. Charlie started giggling when Cas sat down.

“What?” Dean said, looking away from Cas for a moment.

“Don’t,” Gilda warned. 

“We’re the fairy table now!” Charlie pointed at her face, then at Dean and Cas..

Cas groaned. “That’s terrible.” Dean leaned his forehead on Cas’s shoulder and laughed.

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you near the punchbowl,” Gilda said, smiling at Charlie. She turned to Cas and stage-whispered, “It’s spiked, you know.” 

Cas grinned and elbowed Dean. “Hey, go get me some punch?” 

“Oh, ‘cause that’ll end well.”

“If you want me to dance, I’m going to need to be at least a little lu-- inebriated.” 

Dean grinned at him. “You almost said lubricated.” 

“Maybe. Shut up.” Cas matched Dean’s grin and started laughing. 

“Aww, you guys know each other so well already.” Charlie pouted and sighed. “Are you finally, like, together-together?”

Cas sat up. “We haven’t really discussed …” 

“It’s just prom, Charlie,” Dean said, frowning. “Don’t make a big deal of it.” 

Castiel grabbed his fork and started poking at the mashed potatoes on his plate. “Yeah,” he muttered. “It’s not that big a deal.” Cas looked up and saw Meg and Balthazar circling the room together. He put a hand up to get their attention and they came over.

Meg was dressed in classic Hepburn-style: updo, evening gloves, and a sheath dress. Her tiara and necklace both matched her purse, which was bedecked with rhinestones. Balthazar, on the other hand, wore a sequined top with billowy sleeves and deep v-neck.[27] Each side of his black dress pants had a line of matching sequins as well. He pulled Meg’s chair out for her.

“Wow,” Charlie said, taking them both in. “Meg, you look amazing.”

“Yeah, one of us had to be classy and I won the arm-wrestling contest.”[28]

“We all know I have better cleavage, darling,” Balthazar said with a grin. Meg rolled her eyes. 

“Did you get your matching flasks?” 

Meg snickered. “Bal has one, but he had to leave it in the car. But I got something even better.” She put her purse on the table and turned it around. She took Cas’s empty water glass and held it just underneath, scooting around to shield the action from prying eyes. One of the rhinestones flipped up to reveal a small spigot and she poured some clear liquid into the glass.

Cas took a whiff. “Vodka?”

“The shitty, cheap stuff, too,” Meg said with a wink. Cas reached to take the glass from her, but she pulled it back. “Get your own, Clarence.” He pouted. 

Dean leaned across Cas and spoke quietly. “So did you guys spike the punch?” One of his hands landed in Cas’s lap for balance. 

“I believe that was your friend’s doing,” Balthazar said, nodding towards the back of the room. 

Dean looked over and saw Ash. He was wearing black jeans and a tuxedo t-shirt. “Oh, he dressed up,” Dean said. He squeezed Cas’s thigh.

“I’m going to get some punch,” Cas said, pushing his chair back. Dean pulled his hand away. “Do you want some?”

Dean shook his head. “But if you see some desserts …”

“Yeah, yeah, bring you some pie.” Cas ran his hand over Dean’s shoulders as he left the table.

After a couple cups of punch and a fruit tart for Dean (there was no pie), they started dancing. They were awful, but made up for it with enthusiasm. Cas tried to show Dean some ballroom moves that he learned for theatre. They both kept trying to lead, and when Cas twisted Dean into a dip, he ended up dropping him on the floor. Dean thought it was hilarious. 

They alternated between mingling, dancing, and raiding the dessert table. People asked them if they were finally dating and Dean had a snarky reply every time. Cas finally got Meg to sneak him a drink from her purse. After two hours of this, the music stopped and Principal Tran walked on to the stage to announce the Prom Royal Couple. Cas’s whole body felt warm and loose. Dean kept him steady with an arm around his waist. 

“You think it’ll be us?” He asked, leaning in close to whisper in Cas’s ear. 

“With the number of ballots I forged, it better be,” Cas said. 

Dean pulled back stared at him. Cas held his gaze until Dean cracked up and leaned his head on Cas’s shoulder. 

“I made your name DeeDubs in most of them, bee-tee-dubs,” Cas said, grinning. Dean buried his face in Cas’s neck and shook with more laughter.

Eventually, Dean got himself under control. He looked up and wiped his eyes. “I did it the old fashioned way. I got Charlie to write a bot to flood the online votes.”

“There was an online vote?” Dean grinned at him and ruffled his hair. Cas ducked his head away. “Cut that out. I spent a lot of time making it look specifically this disheveled.”

“May I have your attention.” Principal Tran announced into the microphone. The room quieted down. Dean rested his arm on Cas’s shoulders. “The vote for prom sovereigns has unprecedented response. Many students seemed to think that online poll was equivalent to voting in person. It was not.” Cas elbowed Dean in the ribs and smirked at him. 

“The online poll,” she continued, “counted for 10% of the total votes. So those of you who decided ‘vote early, vote often,’ did have some impact. Congratulations.” A titter of laughter ran through the crowd. “But the paper votes were especially impressive. We had over five hundred votes turned in! It’s nice to see that the class can be so civically-minded.” She paused for a moment. “It’s especially impressive for a senior class of ninety-six people.” 

There was some snickering and hushed conversation among the students. Cas hid his face in the lapel of Dean’s jacket. “Four hundred extra votes, Cas?” Dean whispered. “That’s going a little overboard.”

“I only did fifty though,” he said, laughing. 

“But even still,” Principal Tran said. The crowded quieted down again. “The results were overwhelming. Only thirty votes were cast for someone other than the winning couple.”

“Oh, shit,” Cas said, looking around. “They’re _all_ in on it.”

“So your prom sovereigns are, unsurprisingly …” She paused and smiled. “Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak.”

The spotlight found them and the entire crowd turned to look. Dean took a step back from Cas and turned to face him. Cas hid his face in his hands. “This is so much worse than I thought it would be,” he said.

“We did not think this through,” Dean said, blush creeping up to his ears. He waved to the crowd.

Principal Tran motioned for them to come up on stage and they slowly made their way through the crowd. She held up two shiny plastic crowns. They ducked down a little so she could put one on each of them. She waved them off the stage. The crowd parted to give them a spot on the dance floor.

“Now, the online poll did get to pick the song for the royal couple,” Principal Tran said, a smile creeping onto her usually stern face. “And for this, there was some competition. Some of the most popular picks were: ‘I’m Coming Out’ by Diana Ross.” There was some cheering from the crowd.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean muttered. “We’re hardly ‘coming out’ over here.”

“‘You’re My Best Friend’ by Queen, and ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ by Elvis Presley. But the winner is …” She gestured to sound booth. The song started with a 60s era orchestral swell, and a rich contralto singing ‘ _At last ...’_

Dean groaned. “What? Did they just go through the ‘most-cliched’ list?” [29]

Cas laced his fingers together behind Dean’s neck. “It’s not so bad,” he said, starting to sway. 

Dean put his hands on Cas’s hips and swayed with him. “Could be worse, I guess.”

Principal Tran left the stage. The music played for a little bit. People around them had their phones up to record the dance. Dean gave Cas a little smile and a wink. Cas responded with a short nod and leaned over to lay his head on Dean’s shoulder.

“You’re really getting a kick out of this, aren’t you asshole?” Dean said to Cas with a frown. 

Cas raised his eyebrows. “Says the man who can’t keep his paws off me.”

“I’m just trying to keep you upright. How much booze did you manage to find?” 

Cas stood up straight and put his hands on Dean’s shoulders. “I had to get through tonight somehow.” He sneered. “I mean, have you met you?” 

Dean turned his grin into a grimace. “You pretend, but I know why you wanted me here. Trying to ride off the coattails of my popularity.”

“Hardly.”

“Says the guy who blackmailed me into coming here.”

“That’s bullshit,” Cas said, throwing his hands up and pushing off. Dean took a step back. “You asked me to this.”

“Like hell I did! What would I want with you?” The music was still playing, but the crowd around them went quiet. People were still recording, though.

“You certainly want something with the way you keep grabbing my ass,” Cas took a step towards him. “Just admit it, Winchester.”

Dean shoved him away. “Real wishful thinking, Novak,” he hissed, just loud enough for people nearby to hear. “How drunk are you?” 

“Drunk enough to forget I’m a pacifist, you arrogant assbag,” Cas said, shoving him back. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your freak-out over your stupid tapes.” 

People started backing away. Becky Rosen was at the edge of the circle, crying into her date’s handkerchief. From the mumbling, it sounded like someone had gone to get security.

“Yeah, pacifist, right,” Dean gave Cas another shove. “Easy to say that when you know you’ll get your ass kicked.” The crowd backed away some more.

“Don’t start this shit here, fuckhead,” Cas warned. 

Someone shut off the music.

“You talk shit for so long.” Dean shoved him again, forcing Cas back a step. The people behind Cas moved further aside. “Eventually, it’s gonna come back to bite you.” 

Dean moved to push Cas again, with one hand curled into a fist. Cas grabbed the arm that came at him and spun into Dean’s space. He ducked down as he spun and came up with his back under Dean’s chest. In one motion, he pulled Dean’s arm down and straightened out, and rolled Dean over his shoulder. Dean landed flat on his back where Cas had been standing a split-second before.

Everyone gasped. Cas looked around and saw that the hotel security was pushing through the crowd towards them. Dean groaned from the floor and looked up at him. Cas gave him a wink and ducked into the crowd. He put his crown on Becky’s head as he slipped past her. 

Ash and Victor appeared at Dean’s side and helped him to his feet. “Shit, man. You all right?” Victor asked. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean said, dusting himself off. “Where did that come from?”

“You didn’t know Castiel did judo on the side, huh?” Ash said.

“No, I didn’t fucking know that,” Dean grumbled. 

Two hotel security guards and Principal Tran pushed their way through the crowd. Dean ducked his head at the force of her angry glare. “Mr. Winchester,” she started, crossing her arms.

Dean sighed and pulled the crown off his head. “I didn’t ask for any of this, you know,” he said, holding it out to her. “I didn’t ask Novak to prom and I didn’t do any of the vote rigging stuff. I don’t even like the guy.” 

Principal Tran arched an eyebrow at him but didn’t say anything. She didn’t take the crown, either. 

“I’m just saying that I got railroaded into this whole thing. I was trying to be a good sport about it until the dance thing.” He sighed. “Am I getting kicked out?”

She took the crown from him and shook her head. “Not kicked out, per se. But maybe it would be best if you headed home now.” She looked at Ash and Victor. “Can you two escort him to his car?”

Like all of Principal Tran’s statements, it was clearly not a polite request. As the three of them walked out of the ballroom, the whole tone of the place changed. Some people seemed angry, while others ducked their heads and looked guilty. The music came back on before Dean left, but no one looked like they wanted to dance.

A dozen students followed them out and looked around to see if the fight would start up again, but Cas was nowhere to be seen. Ash and Victor walked with him through the parking lot. Victor commented on how lucky he was to have gotten off lightly. Dean grinned and agreed. He drove away with a little wave to the crowd.

* * *

Dean pulled over a couple blocks away and got out his phone to check his texts. As expected, they were all details from Cas’s side of things.

_Angel: Up in the room_  
_Angel: There’s a back stairway we can use on the other side of the pool_  
_Angel: No one saw me go up_  
_Angel: Meg wanted to know if I was OK_  
_Angel: Told her I caught a cab home_  
_Angel: Are you OK?_

Dean chuckled. He stretched his arms out and rolled his shoulders. Cas throwing him had been unexpected. Dean couldn’t tell if that had been him going easy or at full strength, but he ached. Still, it was no worse than a running a few laps.

_Dean: I’m good_  
_Angel: OK_  
_Angel: How’d it go?_  
_Dean: I got out and drove around the block_  
_Dean: Find me a place nearby to park for the night?_  
_Dean: Baby’s distinctive_

Dean waited in the car while Cas did a little research. After a couple of minutes, he sent Dean an address of an all-night garage a few blocks from the hotel. 

Dean parked on the third floor of the garage, away from other cars. He thought about changing in the backseat because he didn’t want to walk around in a tux, but once he opened the trunk he changed his mind. He pulled on Castiel’s trench coat instead, threw his duffel bag over one shoulder, and locked everything up. He texted Cas that he was on his way. 

It was a quick jog back to the hotel. Prom was still in full swing, and no one was out in the parking lot. Dean walked along the back row of cars and then cut across to get to the back entrance, texting to let Cas know he was there.

A minute later, Cas pushed open the keycard-locked door. He was still wearing his tux, but had changed his dress shoes out for sneakers. He gave Dean a wink and stayed a couple of paces ahead of Dean as they snuck through the back hallway. He waited until they were at the door to the stairs before taking off. Dean chased him up the back stairwell. By the third flight of steps, Dean was winded. 

“Dude,” he said, grabbing on to the handrail to swing around a turn. “I thought you were drunk.”

Cas hesitated at the top of the stairs. “I was pretending. Like how you’ve apparently been pretending to be an athlete.”

Dean glared at him. “It’s been a long night, jackass.” He took a breath and dashed up. Cas yelped and ran again. Dean chased him up one more flight of stairs and then down a hallway, catching him just outside their door. 

“So nice of you to bring my coat back,” Cas said as Dean pinned him to the wall. Cas ran his fingers along Dean’s belt. “It looks good on you.”

“It’s a little tight,” Dean said. 

Cas snickered and raised his eyebrows. “That’s--”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘that’s what she said.’ I know.” 

“More like that’s what he said, I think.” Cas pulled Dean closer. “Possibly that’s what I’ll say.”

Dean grinned. “Seriously, though, I feel like a flasher in this thing.”

“Another lovely mental image.” Cas grabbed the side of Dean’s dress shirt and pulled one side free from his pants. 

“Jesus,” Dean said. “Can’t wait until we’re in the room?”

Cas’s fingers dipped into Dean’s waistband and found a line of silk. His eyes lit up and he pulled the pants out from Dean’s hip to take a look. 

“Hey!” Dean said, grabbing his hands and pinning them up. “Seriously, our room is right there.” 

Cas grinned and shook his head. He leaned over and nipped at Dean’s jaw. “There’s something appealing about public indecency. Or maybe it’s just a few months of self-imposed celibacy catching up to me.” 

“Well, that sounds just _awful_ ,” Dean said, turning his head up so Cas could mouth at his throat. He slipped a leg in between Cas’s and ground up against him. “I can’t imagine what that’s like.”

Cas groaned. “Okay, you’ve made your _point_ , Dean,” he said, grinding back for emphasis. He pulled his wrists free and Dean took a step back. 

Dean flicked the do-not-disturb sign hanging from the doorknob as Cas fumbled with the keycard. “Thinking ahead, huh?” He grinned at Cas, who finally got the door open. 

“I’ve already arranged for a big tip for the maid, given what I plan to do to you in this room.” 

Cas grabbed Dean by the tie and pulled him in. They shut the door behind them and flipped the deadbolt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 27 Pod7et has made me some lovely fanart for this.  [ return to text ]  
>   
> 28 Balthazar let her win. This is not because he could win if he tried (he can't), but because when he tries he ends up injured.  [ return to text ]  
> 29 Yes, Dean. that's exactly what we did.  [ return to text ]


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The entire beginning of this chapter is unnecessary schmoop.
> 
> And now it's done! Enjoy.

Two weeks later and they were hanging out in the back seat of Dean’s Impala. High school was almost over. All that remained was a couple more days of classes, finals week, and graduation. At school every day, they’d made a show of hating each other. They’d spit insults across hallways and act like they were going to fight. The teachers had to separate them in classes. 

“A couple of guys offered to help me beat you up, you know,” Dean said, running his fingers through Cas’s hair. The Impala was parked by the lake with all the windows open. Dean stretched out on the back seat with his back pressed to the door, and Cas sat with his back to Dean’s chest. 

Cas huffed a laugh and leaned his head back, resting it on Dean’s shoulder. He rubbed Dean’s ear with the tip of his nose. “Meg offered to poison you for me.” 

Dean laughed a little. “You told her not to, right?”

Cas hummed and pulled Dean’s arms around his shoulders. “I don’t remember. Probably.”

Dean threaded their fingers together and ran his thumb over the back of Cas’s hand. “She’s kind of scary.”

“Mmmmhmmm.” Cas yawned and shut his eyes. “Why do you think I’m friends with her?” 

Dean scoffed. “Yeah, that figures.” 

There was a breeze coming off the lake. Dean leaned his head against Castiel’s and sighed. Cas had been drawing, but now the sketchpad was folded up in his lap. Dean plucked it out of his hands and dropped it into the front seat. Cas rolled over and pressed his face into the crook of Dean’s neck. The sun was setting and the breeze turned cold. Cas shivered, so Dean pulled the trench coat off the back of the front seats and spread it over them like a blanket.

“Have I mentioned how much I like the back seat of your car?” Cas mumbled into Dean’s collarbone. “Thanks for introducing us.” 

Dean pulled out his phone. “What time do you need to get back?”

“Never,” Cas said, letting out a contented sigh. 

“Right,” Dean said, fiddling with his phone. “Setting an alarm for never.” He put it on rear deck. 

Dean shifted down and lay against the door. The top of his head stuck out through the open window. The only thing preventing him from drifting off was the fact that his leg was falling asleep. He had it folded up and wedged between the seat and Castiel’s thigh. Cas had contorted himself to fit in the back seat with Dean. His knees were bent and his feet hung out the opposite window. Dean slowly freed his leg and stretched it up to rest next to them. Cas shifted against him. 

“Hey,” Dean said softly.

“Mrph,” Cas grunted. He squeezed his arm between Dean and the seat. Dean shifted up a bit so Cas could wrap his arm around Dean’s back. 

“I think the yearbooks are supposed to be in soon,” Dean continued. Cas let out a fake snore. “You gonna sign mine?” 

He could feel Cas giggling against his chest. The trench coat fell back as Cas looked up at him. “I’m going to draw a funny moustache on your picture in every yearbook I sign.” 

“Classy,” Dean said, smiling. “You should leave your yearbook somewhere I can steal it so I can draw dicks everywhere.” 

“Hey, remember those sketches I drew of you? I wonder if there’s still time to make them into stickers.”

“Because you having naked pictures of me isn’t suspicious or anything.” 

Cas snickered. “I’d ask how you’re sure they’ll recognize you, but I suppose everyone would know your freckled ass.”

Dean leaned over and pressed their foreheads together. “You love my freckled ass.”

“Maaaaybe,” Cas said. “Or maybe I’m just lulling you into a false sense of security and this is all an elaborate prank.” 

“The extra long con, huh? Guess I’d better start planning my revenge now.” 

Castiel laid his head back down on Dean’s shoulder. “You can try.” 

“That’s how it’s gonna be, huh?” Dean rubbed his cheek against Cas’s forehead, scratching him with the stubble.

“Pretty much.” Cas swatted at him. 

Dean let out a pleased sigh and kissed Cas on the forehead. “I can live with that.”

* * *

The yearbooks came in the following Monday. Principal Tran announced it over the loudspeaker during homeroom. They were late this year. When faced with complaints, the yearbook committee claimed there were issues at the printers. But they were in now, and after homeroom people started lining up to get theirs.

Dean saw how long the line was and decided to get his later in the day. He went to class early instead. It was the last week of classes and the senior class had collectively given up on anything academic. The teacher had one of the media carts checked out. She introduced the film as ‘a very important history lesson’ and put on Captain America: The First Avenger.[30]

Dean decided it was going to be a good day.

He skipped chemistry for an extra period to finish the movie. No one cared, as it had basically become a study hall after the AP tests. He went to meet up with Charlie afterwards. They were using calculus class to work on a tabletop game that she planned to run over the summer. 

He got there before Charlie and took a seat by the window. It overlooked the courtyard, and Dean could see Castiel’s familiar blue hair down below. He was sitting on a bench in the shade and reading a paperback. Dean pulled out his phone to text him and watch his reaction. 

“Oh, you asshole,” Charlie said, hitting him on the arm with her yearbook. Dean’s phone flew out of his hand and skittered across the floor. 

“Damn it, Charlie,” he said, getting up to chase after it. “What was that for?”

“Am I or am I not your best friend?” She slammed the book down on his desk and flipped it open

“I’m reconsidering.” He pocketed his phone and stood up to see what she was doing. 

“This!” She said, pointing at page at the back of the yearbook that looked like a tabloid. It had headlines of ‘Secret Tryst!’ and ‘Private Prom After-Party for Two.’ It had black-and-white security photos splashed across the page. 

“Son of a bitch,” Dean said as he felt his face heat up. 

“I can’t believe you,” she said, wagging her finger at him. “I even apologized to you for helping set up that prom fiasco!” She tossed her hair back. “But no, apparently you and your boyfriend made up just fine, and then some.”

“What?” Dean gasped. “What else is in that book?” He grabbed at the yearbook but Charlie yanked it back.

“Get your own, Winchester,” she said, sticking out her tongue. 

Dean looked around. A couple other people were comparing their yearbooks and giving him surreptitious glances. He swore and ran out of the room. 

He pulled out his phone as he ran through the hallway. Castiel answered on the second ring. 

“Do you have your yearbook yet?” Dean asked as soon as Cas picked up.

“Uh, no. Why?” 

Dean hesitated at the turn in the hallway. One side led to the wing with the yearbooks. “Are you still in the courtyard?” 

“How did you--” There was a pause. “That’s a little unnerving, but yes.”

Dean turned around. “I’ll be right there.” He disconnected just as Cas started to protest. 

* * *

Cas rolled his eyes when Dean hung up on him. “Can’t take five seconds to explain anything,” he mumbled to himself as he put his book away. He got up just as Dean burst through the courtyard door. 

Cas looked around. Most of the classrooms around the courtyard had students in them, and some of those students were bound to be watching this. Dean was probably angling for another confrontation. “I’m not really in the mood, Winchester,” Cas said loudly, shouldering his bag. 

“Never mind that,” Dean said, grabbing his wrist. “Just come on.” 

“Wait, what?” Cas let himself be dragged back inside. “Will you just tell me what’s going on?”

“We’re in the yearbook.” Dean hadn’t let go of his arm. They were headed to the other side of the school.

“Of course we are. How is this news?” Cas twisted his wrist free of Dean’s grasp and stopped walking. 

Dean stopped and groaned. He threw his head back and his whole body slouched with exasperation. There were a few other people in the hallway watching them. “Pictures of us from prom are in the yearbook.”

“That’s a fast turnaround,” Castiel said, crossing his arms, “but also not surprising.”

“No. Dude.” Dean put a hand on his forehead and sighed. “Pictures from after prom are in the yearbook,” he said quietly. 

It tooks a moment for Cas to process what Dean was saying. His eyes went wide as the realization hit him. “Oh.”

“Was it you?” Dean frowned. “Like, is this another prank?”

Cas shook his head. “Not mine. How did they--”

The closest classroom door swung open. Becky snapped a picture and squealed. “They’re doing the staring thing,” she said, showing her phone to someone in the classroom. “I love it when they do the staring thing!” 

Dean rolled his eyes. He grabbed Cas’s arm and started dragging him along again. 

“Wait! You guys have to sign my fic.” Becky ducked back into the classroom and came out with her yearbook. 

Cas and Dean shared a bewildered look and started running. 

* * *

Hannah was in the yearbook room organizing the camera equipment. She had their yearbooks set aside for them. “You two are very popular,” she said as they signed off on receiving them. “You should stick around. Everyone’s going to want you to sign their yearbooks.”

Dean and Cas looked at each other. “Uh, we can’t really hang out right now,” Dean said. 

Cas nodded. “Yeah, sorry Hannah, so busy…” he said. He grabbed the back of Dean’s shirt and pulled him towards the door.

“Why are we ‘very popular’?” Dean hissed at him out in the hallway.

“And what was Becky saying about a ‘fic’?” Cas stared at the yearbook in his hands. “I think I’m afraid to open this.” 

Dean glanced up and down the hallway. “Come on,” he said, gesturing for Cas to follow him. He led them down towards the offices next to the gym. “The coaches barely use this office during the year,” he explained as he unlocked one.

They hustled inside and Dean locked the door behind him. Cas put his yearbook down on the desk and looked around. It was a small room. One side had a row of cabinets overstuffed with sports equipment. He frowned at Dean. “Where did you get the key?”

“Ash made copies of a bunch of school keys last year,” he said. He went around the desk to sit in the swivel chair behind it. He looked up to see Cas squinting at him.

“You have access to a lockable, rarely-used school office.” Cas sat down opposite Dean and crossed his arms. “We could’ve been using this room this whole time, you know. How many times could I have had you bent over this desk since prom?” 

Dean chewed on his lower lip. “I mean, we can still…”

“Nope, I’m mad at you now.” Cas pulled his chair up and opened the yearbook. He started flipping through pages. “Inconsiderate asshole,” he said with a smile. He stretched his feet out under the desk and tapped Dean’s ankle. 

Dean grinned and hooked his foot around Cas’s calf. “Ok, let’s see what Charlie was whining about.”

They went through the club pages and Dean laughed at some of the pictures of Cas backstage. Cas gave him a small kick. They skimmed the portraits and senior quotes. 

“I think it was in the back,” Dean said as he flipped rapidly through the pages. He stopped at the sponsor pages. The first couple were for parents congratulating their kids and local businesses. Then they hit a section called ‘The Greatest Love Story Ever Told.’ Under the title was a picture of the two of them staring at each other.

“Uh,” Dean said, turning the book so Cas could see it. “I think I found it.”

The next few pages detailed their prank war in chronological order. There were pictures of the aftermath and stories from witnesses. Cas flipped to Valentine’s Day. Along with some pictures of them singing at each other was a list of songs and who had requested them. “Well, now we know who to blame for that,” Cas said. 

“But who do we blame for this?” Dean asked, gesturing at the yearbook. He turned the page to a full page spread called ‘Staring.’ It was dozens of candid shots of the two of them just looking at each other, set up like layers of fallen Polaroids.

Dean looked up at Cas and held his hands out. Cas shrugged. “This is probably pretty fair,” he said. 

The next section looked like a piece of fiction. Dean skimmed it. “Did someone write a story about us?”

Cas read it with him. “Oh, this is what Becky was talking about.”

“Did she … is this porn? About us?” 

“Doesn’t look like it, though Becky writes good slash. I think I learned more about sex from her fics than actual practice.” Cas rested his chin on his hand and started to read the story. “At least, it gave me ideas to try out.” 

“Hey, focus,” Dean said, snapping his fingers. “Read it later.”

“Aww, it’s set in the future. We have babies.”

“What? Like, we adopt?” 

Cas frowned and read a little more. “No, I think it’s m-preg.” 

“What’s m-preg?” Dean asked. Cas glared up at him until Dean thought about it and figured it out. “Oh. Wait, which one of us gets pregnant?”

“Nope, you don’t care,” Cas said, turning past the story. “Oh, this one’s from Meg.”

The page looked like a celebrity tell-all, with the headline ‘Meanstiel: My Adventure as the Meat in a Destiel Sandwich.’ Castiel cracked up and had to explain the terms to Dean.

“Most of this is censored,” Dean complained. “Or in French.”

“Yeah, Balthazar probably wrote it.” Cas smirked at the doctored pictures. “That’s how you can tell. It oozes pretension.” 

“And the whole thing looks really tacky.”

“That's how you know it was Meg's idea.”

“Your friends are weird.”

Cas grinned and leaned back, stretching his legs out and kicking at Dean’s feet. “That is completely new information,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah. What else is there here?” Dean pulled the yearbook back towards him and turned past the tabloid page. “A furniture ad? Why are they using a picture of us for a furniture ad?” 

Cas stretched and glanced over. “Are those bunk beds? Oh.” He grinned. 

Dean frowned at him and read through some of the text. He snorted. “They sure have some strong opinions on which bunk I’d prefer.”

“What do they say about me?” Cas asked, sitting up and trying to read the page upside-down.

Dean scanned the page. “Uh, nothing. You’re just in the picture at the top. You’re not actually mentioned.” 

“What? Rude.”

“I guess everyone thinks you’re passive about it,” Dean said, and Cas made an offended noise. “They’re assuming you’re happy with whatever I decide.” 

Cas threw up his hands. “Twelve years, I’ve spent with these people. And no one thinks I have a preference?” 

“... You don’t, though?”

“But how would they know that?!” Cas grabbed the yearbook back. “Honestly, everyone at this school can kiss my ass,” he said. 

Dean leaned on his hand and smiled at Cas. “I like that this is what you’re offended by.”

“Oh, here’s the prom stuff,” Cas said. He pushed the book back to Dean and got up. He circled around to Dean’s side of the desk so they could both read it. It detailed who had set everything up and what steps people had taken to make sure it went off. Cas leaned onto Dean’s back and ran his hands through Dean’s hair as they read through it.

“Vic picked out the tuxes, huh?” Dean said, rolling his head around under Cas’s nails. “He’s got good taste.”

“Oh, son of a bitch,” Cas mumbled, tugging at Dean’s hair. Dean sat up straight in his chair. “Gabe was in on it.” Cas pointed at the spot he was reading on the page. “He’s the one who told me to get a hotel room ‘just in case’.”

“It was probably to get you back for the duck bomb.”

“That’s hardly fair. He brought those ducks back to the dorm with him and got plenty of use out of them.”

Dean shrugged and leaned into Cas’s side. Cas flipped the page and Dean recognized the tabloid headline from earlier. “Ah, that’s what Charlie showed me,” he said. 

Cas nodded. “Hallway security cameras. They even have a datestamp. Who do you think did this?”

“Ash, probably.”

The next page had some long-range shots of them leaning up against the Impala together and a lot of ‘happy ending’ puns. “We have a stalker,” Cas said.

“We probably have several.”

They were nearly at the end of the yearbook. The last page was a breakdown of predictions about their relationship. ‘Get Together After Prom’ was highlighted as the winner. Dean shut the book and Cas sat down on the desk in front of him. He used Dean’s chair as a footrest.

“So clearly all of our friends were involved in this,” Cas said, playing with Dean’s hair again. “But one of them must be the mastermind.” 

“Y’think?” Dean said. He shut his eyes and leaned into Cas’s lap. 

“Well, someone put all these pages together.” Cas nudged Dean with his knee. “And they’d have to get it past the yearbook committee.”

“Or the yearbook committee is in on it,” Dean mumbled as he traced the inner seam of Cas’s jeans.

“I wonder how much they had to pay for those pages,” Cas said, shifting in his seat on the table. He grabbed Dean’s hand as it wandered up. “Quit it,” he whispered.

Dean rolled his head to look up at Cas. “Weren’t you saying something about bending me over this desk?” He asked with a smirk.

Cas narrowed his eyes. “Do you have condoms and lube hidden in this office?”

“Uh, no?” 

“Some Boy Scout you are.” 

“I never claimed to be,” Dean said. He sat up. “How about?...” He made a circle with his hand and a O with his mouth and pantomimed oral. 

Cas let out a long suffering sigh. “Please tell me you don't think that's sexy.”

“Is that a no?”

“That’s a ‘maybe next time’.” Cas got off the desk. “Right now, I think we need to find out who did this,” he said, picking up his yearbook. Dean nodded and followed him out.

* * *

They ran into Meg and Balthazar first, and asked about their involvement. 

“Not me, Clarence,” she said. “I think it was Bal’s idea.” 

“Don’t blame me for this,” Balthazar said. “You did the whole layout.” 

“Yeah, but who told us that students were buying sponsor pages in the first place?”

Bal pursed his lips and looked up at the ceiling. “You know? I don’t remember. It was just a thing people were doing.”

“You could ask Becky,” Meg said with a smirk.

Cas shuddered. “You don’t think she coordinated all this, do you?”

“I’m not sure how we’d even get her back for that,” Dean said. 

“Becky really is a prank unto herself,” Bal said, nodding. 

Meg grinned at Dean. “So what did you think of my tell-all, Dean-o?” 

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, I didn’t read it that closely,” he said. 

Balthazar laughed. Meg shifted her weight from one hip to the other and looked Dean up and down. “Well, give it a shot. And, you know …” she trailed off and winked at him.

Cas shook his head and chuckled. Dean took a step away. “Uh, no offense, Meg … but you kind of scare me.”

Bal cracked up and nodded in agreement. Meg flipped her hair back. “No, that’s good. Congrats, Clarence, your boyfriend has some sense after all.”

Cas dragged Dean away to try to find one of his friends to question next.

* * *

Victor burst out laughing at them when they they asked about his involvement. He had to lean on the wall to hold himself up. He calmed down for a moment, but when they repeated their questions, he started laughing again. He was attracting a crowd so they left him and moved on.

Becky found them again and gushed about their relationship for a bit. Cas got her talking about her fic, much to Dean's dismay. 

“I just knew it, you know?” She pressed her yearbook into Dean's arms and nodded for him to sign it. “I knew you two had too much UST for it to end like that!” 

“Yeah, you got us,” Dean said. He flipped to the back to find an empty spot near her story and signed his name. He looked up to see both Cas and Becky looking at him. “What?”

“Did you read it?” Becky asked with a manic smile.

“Uhhh…” Dean gave Cas a look, but Cas just shook his head and hid a laugh behind his hand. “I haven't read all of it yet, but Cas told me he loves your stories. He says they're very educational.”

Cas’s laugh turned into a glare as Becky focused her attention on him. From behind Becky’s back, Dean blew him a kiss and snuck away. 

* * *

Castiel caught up to Dean while he was apologizing to Charlie. They were sitting across from each other in the cafeteria. “Look, we didn’t tell anyone,” Dean said. “I haven’t even told my mom yet.”

“Really?” Cas sat down next to him. “I have.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Ok, so Cas has told his mom, but--”

“No, I told your mom when she taught me how to make cherry pie last weekend.” 

Dean turned and stared at Cas. “What? I didn’t get any cherry pie.”

“Yeah. She was a little upset when she found out that you hadn’t told her about me, so she made me take the pie we baked home. And Gabriel’s home from college, so …” Cas shrugged. 

“You couldn’t even save me a piece of pie?”

“You couldn’t tell your mom that we’re dating?”

Charlie cleared her throat. “Guys, really? I’m still here.” She looked back and forth between them. “You two are the worst. Like, seriously. This is so cute, it’s gross.” 

Dean crossed his arms and scoffed. “See if I ever offer to blow you in the coach’s office again,” he mumbled. 

“And that’s more information than I ever needed.” Charlie said, pushing back from the table. 

“Wait, wait,” Cas waved her back. “How much of this monstrosity were you responsible for?” he asked, tapping the yearbook.

Charlie grinned. “What, you didn’t like it?”

“No, it’s fantastic. I want to find the mastermind and congratulate them,” Cas deadpanned.

Charlie scrunched up her forehead and glanced at Dean. Dean shrugged at her and gave her a half-smile. “I did the layout for a couple of pages, pulled together some of the more incriminating pictures, you know.” She grinned. “Like that one of Dean washing your car. How’d you get him to do that?”

Cas frowned and pulled his phone out. “How’d you get that? That was only on my phone. I didn’t even back that up.”

Charlie snatched his phone from him. “Dude, 1-2-3-4-5 is not a secure password.” She unlocked his phone and started flipping through his photos.

Dean laughed. “What? That’s the kind of combination an idiot would have on his luggage.” Charlie grinned and high-fived him from across the table.

“That makes no sense. Who locks their luggage?” Cas asked. He got out his yearbook and started looking for the picture in it.

Charlie stared at him. “Really?”

“Was that a reference?” Cas looked between them, confused. “I don’t understand that reference.” 

Dean face-palmed. “I’m going to spend the entirety of summer break educating you on Mel Brooks, aren’t I?” 

“Aww. If you guys promise to keep it PG, I’ll help,” Charlie said. 

“I can’t guarantee that I won’t make jokes about the size of Cas’s schwartz,” Dean said with a grin. Charlie made a face at him.

“Can we concentrate here?” Cas said, tapping the yearbook on the table. “So you just did these pages?” 

Charlie nodded. “Just those and some of the stuff in the timeline. It’s weird, because I thought they were going to have other student-sponsored pages in the yearbook but it ended up just being about you two. Gilda’s pissed. She tried to get one about our band, but it wasn’t accepted.” 

“Yeah? I didn’t even know that students could buy pages. When did that start?” Dean asked.

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know. Gilda told me about it, and then some other people wanted to do some pages about you guys, and then …” She held up her hands. “It just kinda happened, I think.”

“Thanks, Charlie,” Cas said as he got up. Dean followed his lead. 

* * *

As they searched for Ash, Dean and Cas discussed what they’d learned.

“Everyone’s saying that they’d heard from somebody that students could buy sponsor pages,” Dean said, “and that other students were already doing it.” 

“Becky ran down a list of her friends that were also submitting stories,” Cas added. “She was over the moon that hers was accepted.”

Dean pulled out his phone. “Victor says a couple guys submitted fake ads. The bunk bed one was a ‘group effort’, he says.” 

“So no one’s taking credit for organizing the thing?”

“I’ll bet it was all Ash,” Dean said. He checked in the faculty lounge, but it was empty. “He probably hacked the yearbook files at the printer or something.” 

Cas rubbed his chin. “I don’t know. He didn’t strike me as the type of person who would plan this much. Or this well.” 

“I mean, he could. He, uh ...” Dean sighed, racking his brain for an example. “Well, he’s at least gotta be behind the security tape pictures.” 

They after searching most of the school, the finally found Ash back in the yearbook room, chatting with Hannah. Dean dragged him out into the hallway.

“Heeey,” Ash said. “I guess you guys finally saw the yearbooks, then.”

Cas and Dean glanced at each other, then turned to glare at Ash. Cas crossed his arms. Dean stood just behind him. Neither of them said anything.

“Ok, so it’s a funny story,” Ash said, holding his hands out. “You’re gonna laugh.”

Dean glanced at Cas again and then back to Ash. “Go on.” 

“So, that pool about what’d happen with you guys? Yeah, that was mine, of course.” Ash clapped his hands together. “And I had lots of people were in on it, right? And then your brother tells me you booked a hotel room so of course I had to see what was going on there. So then, bam! I have my proof!” He chuckled. Cas and Dean frowned. “I already had a couple’a sponsor pages lined up, so I made up something quick with the betting pool and the photos and snuck ‘em in. Let you two have your fun with the school, but still eventually get paid up.” 

Cas and Dean looked at each other again. Cas raised his eyebrow at Dean. Dean shrugged. 

“And?” Dean asked. 

“And what?” 

“What about the rest of the pages?” Dean asked.

“And the photos from after prom,” Cas added.

“Man, I didn’t have nothing to do with those.” Ash said. “My only pages were the security photos and the betting pool. And even those came out nicer than I submitted ‘em.” 

Cas sighed. He leaned against the open doorway and crossed his arms. “Who did you submit them to?”

“Uh…” Ash shifted his feet. “I just dropped ‘em off with my sponsor form in their submittal box. Kinda last minute, you know?”

Dean looked over at Cas and patted Ash on the arm. “Yeah, thanks man,” he said. “You’ve been a big help.”

Ash nodded. He ducked back into the classroom to retrieve his books, waved goodbye to Hannah, and left.

Dean leaned up against the wall next to Cas. “You got any ideas?” he asked. “You think someone just saw us sneaking around?”

“And took pictures and got them into the yearbook after the deadline?” Cas shook his head. “If it wasn’t Ash, it had to be someone who saw the pictures, right? And then followed us around like a paparazzi.”

“Creepy. I didn’t see anyone.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Cas tapped his fingers on the wall. “But I wasn’t really looking.” 

Dean slipped his arm around Cas’s waist. “Yeah, we were both a little preoccupied.”

Cas leaned into Dean. “Hm. It’s gonna bug me if we don’t figure out who this is before graduation.” 

“Maybe they’ll come forward,” Dean said. He stepped around to stand in front of Cas, bracketing him on either side with his arms. 

Cas looked up at Dean and grinned. “You think?” 

Dean pressed his forehead to Cas’s. “You do that much work, you’d want to get the credit, right?” He tilted his head and kissed the corner of Cas’s mouth.

“Somebody on the yearbook, probably,” Cas said. He shut his eyes and hummed as Dean kissed his jaw. “Probably a photographer, someone kind of sneaky, but who knows us.” Cas stretched his neck to the side and Dean moved on from his jaw. “And no one has a clue who it is yet … what if they don’t want the credit and they never come forward?”

Dean leaned into Cas and pressed him against the wall. “That’d drive you crazy, wouldn’t it?”

“Ugh,” Cas grabbed Dean’s face and smooshed his cheeks. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?” 

Dean made fish-lips at Cas. Cas laughed and let go of his face. Dean took a half-step back. “You want to keep making out in the hallway or get a room?” He edged Cas towards the open and mostly empty room behind them.

“I don’t think Hannah will appreciate it,” Cas said as he let Dean walk him backwards into the classroom.

“I’m surprised you remembered I’m in here,” Hannah said without looking up from her book. 

“Sorry.” Dean let go of Cas and gave him a little more space. “Oh, hey. We could ask her,” he said. “Hey, Hannah, you’re on the yearbook, right?” 

Hannah looked up and gave Dean a tight smile. She briefly glanced at the stack of yearbooks on the table in front of her. “Yes.”

“When did they start letting students buy sponsor pages?” Dean continued. “And how come we didn’t hear about it?”

She looked back and forth between Cas and Dean. She shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, no one seems to know how that got started.” He scratched his head and turned back to Cas.

Cas crossed his arms and looked around the room. “Hey, Dean? Who is someone that, when they say something, it’s always because they heard it somewhere and are passing it on? Like, you never remember that you heard it from them first?”

“I dunno.” Dean shrugged. He thought about it for a second. “Wait, how would I know?”

Cas stared at Hannah. “What do you do with the yearbook again, Hannah?”

“A little bit of everything, really,” she said, matching Castiel’s gaze. “Especially when there’s a deadline.” 

Hannah and Castiel continued to stare at each other until Hannah cracked a little smile. “Unbelievable,” Cas muttered.

“Wait,” Dean said. “Wait. Hannah? Really?”

“I’m not even mad.” Cas sat down across the table from her. “How long did you plan this?” 

“Months. I knew I was going to do something with the yearbook, but wasn’t sure what until you two did your thing.” Hannah grinned. “Thanks for that.”

“I’m still not sure I believe it. You win Best Prankster,” Dean said. “Too bad it didn’t make it into the yearbook.” 

Cas nodded. “Are you going to tell people?”

“Nope,” she said. “That’s the beauty of it. Neither of you will, either, because no one will ever believe you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 30 Because I love Captain America and let's be real, Dean probably does too.  [ return to text ]


End file.
